Spa Magic ?

[ebirrane]

Hey all,

  My sister has a hot tub (about 15 years old by now) and has been using a product called Natural Spa (Spa Magic?).  Apparently, her water is clean and healthy and all she needs to do is drop seaweed enzymes into the water every 3 months.
http://www.naturalspasolution.com/.  She is sensitive to Chlorine and bromine and I had always thought she was using Baqua Spa.

  I'm a Chlorine/MPS person myself, but we all now have a vacation home and there is some thought to moving the hot tub there onto the "natural" regiment.

  Does anyone have any experience with this product, positive or negative? Is it really possible to just treat a spa every 3 months? Should I be willing to dip my toe into a hot tub under such a regiment?

-Ed

  

[Steve]

As a rule of thumb, I recommend to RUN AWAY from any spa product that utilizes the word MAGIC in it!

There's no magic in watercare...just knowledge.

[ebirrane]

Indeed.

She's been using this system, apparently, for years and no limbs have fallen off.  I am tempted, though, to take a taylor test kit over and see what gives...

-Ed

[Steve]

Indeed.

She's been using this system, apparently, for years and no limbs have fallen off.  I am tempted, though, to take a taylor test kit over and see what gives...

-Ed

I dunno Ed... it just scares me when I see stuff like this. Then again, in Canada, we are far more strict on watercare and the effective sanitizers that are designed to look after commercial and residential pools and spas.

I don't mind an enzyme system but my teachings have always been that it supports a chlorine or bromine system and NOT as a stand alone product due to the lack of effective sanitizing ability.

How do they test it? :-/ If a sanitizer residual can not be tested, how can it be determined to be a safe environment? Scary stuff man...

[Gary]

Can they stuff pull a rabbit from the filter canister? Now that would be Magic.


Funny how the mention the EPA on their site (several times), but they do not state the EPA recognizes their product as a sanitizer. They cannot because the EPA does not.

Very coy on the their part to mislead on the EPA thing.

[ebirrane]

I would also imagine their claim that it is:

"100% NON-TOXIC TO ALL LIVING CREATURES AND THE ENVIRONMENT"

Would imply that it is a terrible sanitizer.  I mean... we want things toxic to really teeny tiny living creatures, right?

I want to find out more about this. Clear water does not mean healthy water.  What tests can be done on a water sample to check for nasty things? I doubt there is a test strip for bacteria, .

-Ed

[ebirrane]

More info...

She is not using "Magic Spa", she is using "The Natural" and, actually, buys it from Dr. Spa, as the link she gave is:

http://www.rhtubs.com/natural-hot-tub.htm.

So, Dr. Spa, any chance we get some information on how well this product works in a vacuum?

EDIT:

Actually, I hope it works pretty poorly in a vacuum, as we are using it in hot tubs...  I meant does it really not need any additional sanitizer???


-Ed

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

*sigh* The Natural is a water conditioneer. It's is not a sanitizer nor is it sold as such. The manufacturer provides instructions that call for the use of an additional EPA approved sanitizer along with The Natural.



About 6 years ago, 2 agents from the EPA (one of them Term would have liked to hire for his parties) came through my front door flashing guns and badges (no joke). They "explained" to me that The Natural was not EPA approved, and as such it can not be marketed in the USA as a sanitizer. They warned me that if I continued to market it as a sanitizer I would be fined in the six figures. They were actually kind enough to spend about an hour with my going over the web site and making changes to the wording. Some words were "ok" to use, some were not. "eleminate" was ok, "destroy" was not...... and it went on and on and on. It was explained to me that there was a pretty big grey area as to what I could or could not say, and it was their job to keep me as far out of the grey area as possible.

What people choose to do with this product in their own home, I, nor anyone else has any control over.

[tony]

There are Natural users who swear by the product and some who use it without additional sanitizer.  If it were me, I would use it with a low dose of dichlor.

[ebirrane]

Thanks for the info.  I've passed it along as well as a link to this thread.

-Ed

[Johnny D]

I understand the point of needing one of the three approved sanitizers, chlorine, bromine or biguanide sp?  Here is the response from a distributor of Spa Magic when I asked if I need to compliment his product with a sanitizer:
 [indent]Spa Magic is completely compatible with ozonators.
You only use spa magic, you have to balance your pH in the beginning then
spa magic will maintain it for three months.
  You don't have to use chlorine or bromine on a regular basis only if you
have a problem and then you can shock it to speed up the recovery time,
otherwise spa magic will keep your tub clean for the full 3 months without
any addtional product.[/indent]
[size=14][glow]Sounds almost too good/easy to be true.  Question:Does this sound reasonable to use Spa Magic and add a little chlorine afer each use and monitor the chemical balance with the Talyor kit? [/glow][/size]

[ebirrane]

Well, my sister has been using "Natural" on its own in her tub for years now.  She, her husband, and 2 children use the tub regularly. I'm sure someone is in it at least once a week and there have been no rashes or weird illnesses.

Having said that, however, she is going to start adding a little dichlor to the mix and, more importantly, will be doing so to the shared tub in the vacation house!

Thanks for all of the input!

-Ed

[Johnny D]

Clarification needed.  
Is "[glow]The Natural[/glow]"  a different product than "[glow]Spa Magic[/glow]"
I am guessing that each is similiar in that they are enzyme based.
Can someone shed some light on the differences?

Thanks!
 

[Steve]

 "You don't have to use chlorine or bromine on a regular basis only if you
have a problem and then you can shock it to speed up the recovery time,..."

I guess what they are suggesting is to take more of a reactive approach to watercare as opposed to a proactive. It's always much easier (and more healthy) to eliminate issues prior to having them and especially when we're taking about bacteria and countless other contaminants within hot water that is shared with others.

People can look after their water however they choose I guess…I just don’t need to be in there with them!

Steve