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Hi All,I have a new Jacuzzi, and it seems that the advice given to me by the installer was bogus.He threw in 3 capfuls of the Jacuzzi Bromine powder from the starter kit, put 3 bromine tabs in the feeder, and told me to add a cap of powder after every use, and 3 tabs every week. He also advised that I should never have to use the shock....I balanced the TA, pH, and bromine levels. All seemed well, but the water got a little cloudy, so I put in the sachet of (non-chlorine) shock.The next day my Bromine levels were off the charts!So I set about reading up, and I think my tub had may too much bromine in it, and the shock reactivated it all. Does that sound right?Anyway, I freaked and put in some stuff I had for the pond that removes chlorine (and hopefully bromine), and the next day the bromine levels were normal, but TA was bottoming out.I added some TA plus, which got that back up, but the pH went a little high, so I put in some pH minus to get it back down.Right, sorry about all that, but that's the background!I'm thinking that I should just stick with the Bromine tabs, and skip the granules. Do the Jacuzzi brand ones also have Chlorine in them to oxidise?Should I still shock weekly as I've read, and what should I do about the bromine levels after shocking?The tub is used daily by 2 people.Cheers,Andy
I didn't reply because I have no personal experience with bromine. But like Bud, I prefer to use dichlor granules for sanitizer along with non-chlorine shock (MPS) as needed.At first, I tried to avoid chlorine by using a combination of Nature2 mineral cartridge + CD ozone + weekly shocking with MPS. That worked OK when it was just my wife and I using the tub a couple times a week. But we were going through a lot of MPS and replacing $60 cartridges every 6 months, so it was not cheap. Also, when we had a party and the hot tub was full of people for a few hours, the MPS wasn't enough and we'd have to shock with dichlor.Over time, we got in the habit of adding dichlor after each use, and occasionally shocking with MPS. We kept the ozone going but stopped replacing the mineral cartridges. The amount of dichlor to add after use depends on water volume and bather load. For us, 2 people x 1 hour gets 1 tsp, a full tub (6 people) for a couple hours gets 1 Tbsp. If we haven't used the tub in a week, I throw in 1 Tbsp. I used to test free chlorine to make sure I was adding enough, but I don't think it's really necessary. If the water starts to develop a green tint or odor, you didn't use enough. And if there's still a noticeable chlorine odor when you use the tub again, you probably used too much. If the water is getting a little cloudy, we shock it with 2-3 Tbsp of MPS, which is every couple weeks or once a month depending on how much we use it.Good luck.
Good point about CYA and bleach. I generally refill twice a year and have never seen CYA increase much over that time. It does go up if I shock with a lot of dichlor, but then it seems to dissipate over time. These days, I rarely need to shock with chlorine, but it's a good idea to use bleach for that.I did have a bad experience with adding CYA once. After this one fill, I was having difficulty maintaining the water, particularly keeping pH stable. I was advised that I should have CYA about 30 ppm, whereas mine was <10 ppm, so they sold me some granulated CYA and I added it. It just made things worse and I had to refill. It turns out the root of the problem was low calcium hardness. It was at 20 ppm! All previous fills were 60-100 ppm. Since then, I've always had calcium hardness increaser on hand when filling and I need it about half the time.
Thanks for the replies everyone, glad I checked back! Is there a setting I'm missing to get emailed when you get a reply?!I guess the message is not to use bromine!The problem is that I have a lot of it right now...so until that's used up, I want to stick with it, then I'll probably switch to Dichlor as suggested.I didn't add any more bromine (tablets or granules). I shocked it again, and the bromine levels shot up again, but not as high.Today my bromine levels were zero, so I put 2 tablets in the feeder, and will check it again tomorrow. I plan to shock at the weekend, and see what happens to the levels then.Otherwise, the water is clear, no problems there!