Hot Tub Forum
Original => Hot Tub Forum => Topic started by: Quickbeam on June 03, 2014, 01:23:22 pm
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I was wondering if anyone can give me some ideas on what I should do to balance my water?
I started out with tap water with the following:
PH - 7.4
TA - 220
CH - 210
My local spa store (not my dealer) had told me I should add 1/4 cup per week of “Spa Stain Control” for the calcium hardness. I added 1/4 cup of this once and then ran the jets for about 20 minutes. The next test showed the following:
PH - 8
TA - 150
CH - 140
I have been chasing my tail ever since trying to get the PH down. I am using PH down (dry acid) to try and get it down but I cannot get it stable. It keeps jumping back up. As an example yesterday afternoon I had the following numbers:
PH - 7.4
TA - 70
CH - 130
The above numbers were taken after adding PH down and running the jets for a good 40 minutes and letting the tub sit for a while. I know the numbers aren’t perfect but after my wife and I went in the tub last night I took the numbers again this morning, and once again the PH is off the chart. It is over 8. This is what is happening on a regular basis. I keep adding PH down and after I run the jets for a good 40 minutes the PH stays down. Then we go in the tub in the evening and the next morning the PH is back off the chart.
I know I need to get the TA to a point where it stabilizes the PH, but I just don’t know how much further down I can take the TA? I read somewhere not to go below 50. Should I just keep going until the TA gets to 50? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
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I say keep trying slowly to get it down over the next few weeks. Keep using it. What are you using for sanitizer?
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Thanks Tman,
I'm using hydrogen peroxide as a sanitizer. I know it's not the most common way to go, but we do want to try it.
I've just added another 4 teaspoons of dry acid (PH down) into our tub and am going to run the jets for around 40 minutes. From past times trying this, I expect the PH to come in pretty low and I am guessing the TA will come in around 60. I also expect however, that if we go in the tub tonight, tomorrow morning the PH will be back over 8.
If that's the case, I'm thinking I'll just drain the tub and start over. I'll start with plain tap water and try balancing that without any sanitizer and without any of the "Spa Stain Control" that the one Spa dealer told me to use. I know for sure my CH will be higher, but I will just try working with that. I"ll get the water balanced, after running the jets for a while, and see if the PH spikes up again in the morning. If it does not, and remains stable, then I'll add the hydrogen peroxide and see if that's what's causing the PH to spike up.
In another forum someone else also suggested adding 50 ppm Borates and although I don't have any yet, I'll get some and see if that helps.
I'm also thinking of using muratic acid instead of the dry acid, as I have put a fair bit of dry acid in the tub.
Thanks again for your help.
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Believe it or not you are about "balanced". If you have a Taylor kit it should have a watergram and with your ta and calcium you need a PH around 7.8. Adding borates will raise pH without raising ta. If you have the watergram play around with it as there is no one set BALANCED NUMBER but its ranges and the watergram will help tremendously. At 100 F if you want to shoot for a PH of 7.4 you can adjust the ta or calcium readings and still be balanced. So if you kept your PH at 7.4 and your ta at 70, ADUST your calcium to about 325 and you are at the same balanced level as you would be at where you are now and bringing the PH to 7.8.
It sounds confusing but once you get the hang of it, it becomes easy.
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Thanks Vinny,
And yes, I do have the watergram that came with the Taylor test kit. And I understand that by the watergram I am balanced, but my dealer told me, and I have also heard it from others, that PH needs to be somewhere between 7.4 to either 7.6 or maybe as high as 7.8, but no higher. My dealer was adamant with me that the PH has to be within range. After using the tub in the evening, the next morning my PH has been 8 or above. I would imagine, if I didn't keep adding PH down, it would continue to climb after each use of the tub. That seems to be the real problem, I just can't get the PH to stop climbing.
I just did the numbers again after adding another 4 teaspoons of PH down. The numbers are: PH - 7.6; TA - 60; Ch - 130. These were taken after running the jets for 40 minutes. We will go in the tub again tonight, and I expect that tomorrow morning the PH will again be above 8.
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Quickbeam,
Many moons ago there was a Hot Springs dealer here (may still be here) and he always recommended changing your water out after the first month. ALL newbies need to learn their water ... I owned a pool before owning the tub and I had to change water as well ... hot water is different than cold!
Using the jets will raise PH for a while but with you using peroxide which has a low PH that should also drop the PH as well. Since I've never heard of or know nothing about peroxide use it may be a little amount and doesn't effect PH that much. I do know that when I use MPS it can reduce the PH as it is also has a low PH.
Higher alkalinity stabilizes PH. With the tap at 220 try to get your hardness down (or up) to about 100 and don't touch the alkalinity ... you should be balanced OK - look at the watergram and you'll see that your tap PH and alkalinity at 100-104 F is OK with a calcium hardness of about 100. The higher alkalinity should lock in the PH.
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Higher alkalinity stabilizes PH. With the tap at 220 try to get your hardness down (or up) to about 100 and don't touch the alkalinity ... you should be balanced OK - look at the watergram and you'll see that your tap PH and alkalinity at 100-104 F is OK with a calcium hardness of about 100. The higher alkalinity should lock in the PH.
I'm pretty sure you just made quickbeam scratch his head with this response. Higher alkalinity stabilizes pH? Really? I would say the opposite. If your TA is high, your pH will be high also. Quickbeam, you are very close to balancing your water, according to your numbers. If your TA is at 60, I would bet your pH is around 7.6.
"Try to get your hardness down (or up) to 100." He said his calcium hardness was 130 the last he checked, right? CH is not a big issue with balancing your water. I wouldn't worry about this parameter, as you are right in there anyway. Be more concerned with the pH and TA levels. Remember though, this information is coming from a novice hot tubber. Chem geek to the rescue.
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Quickbeam's water is coming out of his tap with a PH of 7.4 with a high ta, that's it natural state. You don't want to fight it.
Alkalinity is a buffer and locks in the stability of the PH. While I will agree that maybe it is high out of the tap, I will standby my belief that there is more than one correct balanced water scenario.
I have a 2003 Taylor book and it explains what the effects of alkalinity both low and high has on the PH and general water/vessel it has on them. I'm not balancing Quickbeams water but it sounds like it has PH bounce which is a result of LOW alkalinity. At an alkalinity level of 70 you would be on the low side, it should be between 80 - 100 (or 130). And it is possible that Quickbeams water may drift higher even with a high TA but it is bouncing all over the place now. BTW, that Taylor explanation about alkalinity in my booklet is on page 11 ... maybe something has changed since then but it worked back then. If you have a Taylor book you may want to view it.
I also want to add that Quickbeam has two different things happening to the water - running jets which will raise PH and adding peroxide which will lower PH.
I've owned my tub for 9 years ... not a newbie. But I will agree that Chem Geek knows more than I do.
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Quickbeam,
I'll throw some more newbie experience your way...
My PH and TA were both off the charts out of the tap so I quickly got them both down into range. I continued to fight PH drifting up and through a host of great advice here, followed the instruction to keep taking TA down slowly until PH stays where it should, which I did. I am now sitting at a TA of 40, with my PH stable at 7.6 for several days now. Now I also understand that I am on the edge of too low and will have to continue to monitor, but hey, one problem at a time, right!
Good Luck!
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Vinny, I understand you don't want to fight it, but you really have no choice. When you get in the tub, you turn on the pumps, which causes the pH to rise if the TA is too high. My tap water has a pH of 7.2, with a TA of 400. Now my TA test results may have been high because of the new test kit (static electricity causing smaller drops from the test solution), but it was still very high. I settled in with a TA of around 60 and my pH was 7.6. I did add boric acid to stabilize the pH also.
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Vinny, I understand you don't want to fight it, but you really have no choice. When you get in the tub, you turn on the pumps, which causes the pH to rise if the TA is too high. My tap water has a pH of 7.2, with a TA of 400. Now my TA test results may have been high because of the new test kit (static electricity causing smaller drops from the test solution), but it was still very high. I settled in with a TA of around 60 and my pH was 7.6. I did add boric acid to stabilize the pH also.
Mike, I am just curious. My understanding is that with Boric Acid you want 50 ppm in the water. I am assuming that's what you put in your tub. I am wondering how you measured how much to put in to get to the 50 ppm? In other words, what do you use to test it to see how much is in the water? Thanks.
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You can use PoolMath (http://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html) to calculate dosing. For a 350 gallon spa, it takes 13 ounces weight of boric acid to get to 50 ppm. You can measure the level using LaMotte InstaTest Borate Test Strips (http://tftestkits.net/Borates-Test-Strips-p29.html), but you normally don't have to measure this since it doesn't go away until a water change (or from water dilution) and the amount to add to the water is fixed.
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Thanks Chem Geek
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I added 16oz of boric acid to my tub, which according to jacuzzi is 415 gallons.
That pool math link that chem geek posted is invaluable. You can learn a ton of water chemistry by using it. On the bottom of the link, there is line, "Affects of adding chemicals". Make sure you enter your tub size in gallons at the top of the page, then play around with adding this or that and see how it will affect the water chemistry.
Trifecta, if you are worried about your TA getting too low, all you have to add is a little baking soda to bring it up. Use pool math and it will tell you how much to add, around 1oz per 10ppm TA.
Quickbeam, I bought my boric acid from dudadiesel. It was around $19 for 5lbs with free shipping when I got mine, but I see the price has dropped to $13.75 for 5lbs. That's less than $3 per fill for this stuff. Cheap!
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I did add boric acid to stabilize the pH also.
OK, so you weren't adding PH down or muriatic acid but did add something - boric acid and that locks in the PH. I will admit that boric acid is new to me but do use borax along with baking soda ( I have the opposite problem then you or Quickbeam). Both my PH and alkalinity go up with just baking soda in my tub ... I don't have to use borax to raise PH and the PH lasts a while ... pool does need both, I'm not 100% convinced it's all the aeration as there are times the tub didn't get used but the PH lasts for weeks.
So with that additional information and me reading what happens with boric acid and how much you need to use - OK I'll buy lowering the TA lower.
Here's a question - what happens if you add boric acid to water with higher TA - does it lock in the PH as well?
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First, I balanced the water using muriatic acid. I wrote down what I added in every step, and I believe I ended up adding around 26oz. of the acid. After I knew my water was right it there, that's when I added the boric acid, which was about a week after my first fill.
I don't have the answer to your last question. The boric acid is also supposed to "soften" the water and make it more sparkly. Personally, I did not notice a significant change in the waters feel.
I am using bromine. My pH was going down ever so slightly every day. The bromine tabs in the floater I use are net acidic, which was causing the pH drop. My lowest was a TA of 40, and pH of 7.5. So I dropped about .2 to .3 in pH over a two week period. The solution was easy, though. Because of the high usage of our tub, I had to top off the water level every two weeks. Adding new water with a high pH and TA, brought me right back to a pH of 7.8 and TA of around 80. With that being said, the boric acid doesn't "lock up" the pH, it apparently helps it to stay stabilized.
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I used lock up but you are correct it is stabilizing. Locking up sounds like it shouldn't move but it will.
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First, I balanced the water using muriatic acid. I wrote down what I added in every step, and I believe I ended up adding around 26oz. of the acid. After I knew my water was right it there, that's when I added the boric acid, which was about a week after my first fill.
I don't have the answer to your last question. The boric acid is also supposed to "soften" the water and make it more sparkly. Personally, I did not notice a significant change in the waters feel.
I am using bromine. My pH was going down ever so slightly every day. The bromine tabs in the floater I use are net acidic, which was causing the pH drop. My lowest was a TA of 40, and pH of 7.5. So I dropped about .2 to .3 in pH over a two week period. The solution was easy, though. Because of the high usage of our tub, I had to top off the water level every two weeks. Adding new water with a high pH and TA, brought me right back to a pH of 7.8 and TA of around 80. With that being said, the boric acid doesn't "lock up" the pH, it apparently helps it to stay stabilized.
Hi Topline Mike,
I have been using dry acid to balance my water but am thinking of switching to muriatic acid. I've heard however that it has quite an odor to it. Could you tell me if you thought it was a strong odor, and also does the odor stay, or does it go away after the acid is in the tub? Thanks.
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quick, I never really put my nose to it. The name itself sounds powerful, doesn't it! I would recommend safety glasses and rubber gloves when you are adding it, and the label on the bottle will tell you the same thing. I turned on both pumps on my tub, and just dumped it in the rolling water (2 ounces at a time). I did not notice any smell after the acid was in the tub, and I guess I didn't expect one either. Adding a couple ounces of acid to 53,000 ounces of water will do that!
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Thanks Mike,
I really appreciate all the help. We are having Company today, but I'm going to have another go at the water tomorrow. I need to add some water to the tub, so I'll be starting with new numbers but once again I really do appreciate all the help from yourself and everyone else!
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Thought I'd check back in and let you all know that I finally, finally got my water balanced and for the last couple of days has been stable. I know my TA is low, but that's the point it stabilized, so I suppose that's just the way it is.
My numbers are as follows:
PH - 7.8
TA - 30
CH - 130
I know it's just balanced, but that's as good as it's going to get. And I certainly made some mistakes on the way, which I won't repeat next time. I had one outlet tell me to put their "Spa Stain Control" product in the water, which I did. It took my CH from about 210 to 130. I suppose normally this would be pretty good, but given my low TA, if I had the CH at 210, as it is out of the tap, I would have been much better. The other mistake I made was that I added this product before I did anything else to the water. I should have waited until I had the PH and TA where it was stable before I did this. At my first water change I won't be adding that product to the water again. So I learned a lot, including the fact that I needed a lot of patience, and once again want to thank you all for your advice.
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Are you using hydrogen peroxide? If you are, how do you test for proper sanitation? Maybe the peroxide is causing a high pH reading?
Here is what my water readings were:
pH of 7.8, TA of 80-90.
pH of 7.7, TA of 70
pH of 7.6, TA of 60
pH of 7.5, TA of 50
I can understand your water and my water are different. It just seems your pH is high for a TA of 30? I do think you are right in there though, and you have educated yourself to better understand the water chemistry game. On your first refill, I would bet you can balance your water in 2-3 hours, before you add any other additives or sanitizers. Having confidence that everything is "right" when you get in the tub makes it that much more enjoyable.
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Hi Topline Mike,
Yes we are using hydrogen peroxide and for testing the hydrogen peroxide I am using test strips. Not the best way to test I know, but I have a friend who has been using the same strips successfully on her tub, and they also are working O.K. for us.
Note that I do have the Taylor test kit for testing and balancing the water.
As for my numbers, the hydrogen peroxide could be affecting the PH, but I just don't know. I really did do things backwards as I did not have my water balanced before I added the sanitizer. Another mistake of many I made. But as you said, I did learn a lot and will be much better next go round.
The other thing that happened is that I just could not get the PH stabilized. I had read that the TA should not go below 50, but every time I aerated the tub the PH would jump on me so I didn't see any choice but to keep bringing the TA down. It was actually a poster to this thread (Trifecta) who said his TA was at 40 that kind of encouraged me to keep going. I got it down to 30 and finally the PH stopped jumping up, but then of course it started trending down. I went on the Pool Math site that Chem Geek had directed me to (thanks Chem Geek) and added a small bit of borax to bring the PH up and then also added 50 ppm Borates to stabilize. So I'm guessing the Borax may be the reason my PH is high for the TA number, but again, when my TA was at 40 the PH kept climbing when I aerated the tub.
So I took a very round about way to get there, but I think (fingers crossed) that I finally have it.
Next time I will do things in the proper sequence and I also think having that Pool Math calculator when I start the process will make things a lot easier.
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Quick, glad to hear its working for you, sounds like we had similar experiences. I'm holding at around 40 TA and 7.6 PH so leaving everything as is and enjoying the heck out of it every single day. At my first drain and refill I will use the Boric Acid as suggested to help stabilize.
Anyway, following your activity did raise an interesting question on the stain control. I, like you, put that stuff right in, because my starter kit, like probably every one in the world made that step number one. I have already low hardness right out of the tap so got a very low reading right off the bat and had to increase CH. So here's my question....
I fill through the pre-filter and have already low CH out of the tap. Should I skip the metal/stain control? Or should I continue to use and then immediately bring CH back up to where it needs to be. Given water that is not hard out of the tap plus use of the pre-filter, am I good? Or are there other metals, etc. that the filter may miss that the metal/stain control will address?
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Hi Trifecta,
Not sure I'm the right one to be answering your question, so I'll just say that when I do my next fill, I will not be using the Stain Control, or if I do use it, it will be the last thing I add, and I'll only add it if I need to bring my CH down. Again, I'm probably not qualified to answer this, but I figure if the water is balanced you should be good to go.
And not to change direction on this thread, but I have another question for anyone out there. When you add the Boric Acid, do you normally do it towards the end of balancing your water, or would it be better to add the Boric Acid at the start. I added it almost at the end of the balancing this time, and it seemed to work out O.K. Just wondering if there is a proper procedure for this?