Water gets cloudy easy.. why?

[squale]

I have a Sundance Altamar spa and it has a Sunzone CD ozonator in it.  I also have a Sunpurity N2 mineral cartridge in it.  The tub is 385 gallons, and everyday (usually after I soak) I put in 1/2 Tablespoon of Dichlor.  Then once a week, I put in MPS for the weekly shock treatment, and I also put in Scale and Mineral control (because my tap water is very hard and I usually have to add about 1/2" of water every week to the tub).  I usually put in Water Clarifier once per week too.  Then randomly throughout the week I spray some Anti-Foam on the top of the water to kill the foam (I get a lot of foam when people have bathing suits on in the tub).

My PH and Alk are pretty much right on.  But for some reason I am still getting cloudy water and not sure why.  Also the tub will still produce some foam even after I spray anti-foam on it.  Is it because I am using Dichlor everyday?  The spa dealer told me that if I am using the N2 cartridge that I don't need Dichlor and that I should use MPS after my soaking.  But I have read differently online.

What do you all recommend I do?  why do you think the water is cloudy?

I keep the tub indoors in my garage.

Thanks

[hottubdan]

How old is the water?

Don't use the antifoam except to knock down foam.  It won't prevent it .

[squale]

water is one month old

[tony]

I have a Sundance Altamar spa and it has a Sunzone CD ozonator in it.  I also have a Sunpurity N2 mineral cartridge in it.  The tub is 385 gallons, and everyday (usually after I soak) I put in 1/2 Tablespoon of Dichlor.  Then once a week, I put in MPS for the weekly shock treatment, and I also put in Scale and Mineral control (because my tap water is very hard and I usually have to add about 1/2" of water every week to the tub).  I usually put in Water Clarifier once per week too.  Then randomly throughout the week I spray some Anti-Foam on the top of the water to kill the foam (I get a lot of foam when people have bathing suits on in the tub).

My PH and Alk are pretty much right on.  But for some reason I am still getting cloudy water and not sure why.  Also the tub will still produce some foam even after I spray anti-foam on it.  Is it because I am using Dichlor everyday?  The spa dealer told me that if I am using the N2 cartridge that I don't need Dichlor and that I should use MPS after my soaking.  But I have read differently online.

What do you all recommend I do?  why do you think the water is cloudy?

I keep the tub indoors in my garage.

Thanks

A couple of things may be going on.  First, overuse of anti foam and/or clarifier products can cause clouding of water.  I suggest only using them when absolutely necessary.  Foam from bathing suits is adding detergents to your water and can contribute to cloudiness, but most likely you are not adding enough sanitizer for the amount of spa use.  Generally one teaspoon per person will do the trick but you really have to find your particular tubs chlorine demand.  After use you need to find out how much chlorine it takes to bring your free chlorine level to 2-3 ppm.  Keep in mind, this will change with the amount of people that use the spa and the level of bacteria they introduce.  Early in spa ownership you have to test frequently to get a feel for what your spa needs, then you can relax a little and check weekly.  I will guarantee that if you're getting cloudy water using chlorine, you would have a quagmire with just MPS.  Bump up your free chlorine level and keep checking after you soak and see what happens.

[Vinny]

Anti foam does nothing to take the foam out.

IMO, your using too many chems. You need the dichlor and since your water is hard, the scale and mineral control (if that's the correct stuff to control hard water problems) but the clarifier and antifoam - usually not needed. To control foam, put the air on and scoop it out, shock with MPS and it usually will go away.

Is this your first water? If so, dump and refill. Have you cleaned the filters after a few days of adding clarifier? If not, you have to.

Remember that a tub usually is less than 1% the volume of a pool. Anything added to it is more pronounced than in a pool. I think I read that 4 people in a spa is like 200 in a pool. There is a formula of when to change the water, the Taylor book publishes it. The more people in the tub, the less time you can keep the water.

Your dealer is wrong about not using dichlor, you need a sanitizer. Your tub would be a mess if you didn't. Also, the amount of dichlor you're using may not be enough. I have a 400 gallon tub and I use 2 teaspoons (2/3 tablespoon) for only one person - I add more if more people go in, up to 2 teaspoons more. More people = more bacteria.

[tony]

I see more and more the pressure dealers have with potential customers wanting a non chlorine/bromine spa.  Now that biguanides seem to be going out of favor, the push seems to be towards ozone, silver and non chlorine shock.  At least they can sell that and if it doesn't work change to something else.  The water mold problem with biguanides seems to be really causing problems.  I knew a lot of people using Baqua or Free and all are off with most switching to chlorine.  I don't totally understand the fear of chlorine but I believe it must go back to public pools and spas.  

[Vinny]

People get on these forums and say that there is a possible carcinogin (sp?) with the after products of chlorine consumption. And there's the possibility of "chemical free" enviroment.

I am finding that people will "research" until they find something they like to hear and run with it. The fact that chlorine was the single most significant reason that a lot of diseases that were waterborn are now gone has no bearing on the research. The fact that people who drink municiple water are consuming chlorine and it's after products doesn't come into play either.

Pools and spas are closed environments and need to be mechanically and chemically purified. I then question the intergity of a dealer who falls under the pressures and sells out. If they know better then stand by the knowledge.

I personally would be afraid of drinking well water vs city water because of who knows what contamination. If I did use a well then I would have to rethink it and would research it further to calm or confirm my fears. I have a friend who has a well and he was going to just pour bleach down his well to kill any nasties ... I told him to really find out what he needs to do as he could over do it ... sometimes too much ain't good either.

[Bonibelle]

Vinny, If your friend knows he has "nasties" in his well water, tell him to pour a gallon of bleach into the well and he will have a good water test for a couple of days. He will also get rust and funky stuff spewed up from the well especially if he has any iron in the water. After the pleasant chlorine smell dissipates, the nasties will surely return! He needs to identify the problem with the well. He is probably getting contamination through a crack or something in the casing.

I have well water and carefully monitor the condition of my well. I also have a water conditioning system to adjust the ph of the water to protect the pipes and a softening system to take some of the hardness back out and remove the iron..and on top of all of that...I have an RO system for my drinking water and ice.  

BUT when I brew coffee, I use the raw well water..it is the best for extracting the coffee flavor and my many fish tanks use the well water too, so it can't be all that bad!

I did my last tub refill with the soft water (by accident, I forgot to divert the water around the filters). I added hardness and I think the water was easier to manage. I don't know if that is good or bad, but I have had no issues so far although I probably won't do it again..if I remember what I am doing!

[Vinny]

Boni,

After I wrote and posted I remember that you have well water. Since I don't, I'm not up on that stuff, I would assume that you do need to keep tabs on it. My friend has a 2nd home somewhere in the PA mountains, he wanted to do a kill "just in case".

I think that you are an example of someone who's doing the right thing but many people don't and that's where the problem lies. I work with a person who buys bottled water by the 5 gallon jug because he refuses to drink or cook with tap water ... his water supply may be bad, I don't know. I am guilty of not changing home water filters when needed, usually go a little longer than I probably should, but so far no immediate ill effects. I also work with a person who takes tap water and passes it through some type of very low micron ceramic filter, I think he told me it kind of oozes the water out and it certainly has nothing in it - reminds me of a gravity fed RO.

Does your RO system dump the water back into the well? RO's generally have a 80% or more rejection rate.

[Bonibelle]

We have well water at our beach house that we neither drink or cook with. We buy 5 gallon jugs at Walmart on the way down. The well is very shallow because of the iron, but people down there drink it. I would NEVER..mostly because of the shallow well. I bet your friend has no problems with his well, maybe he is just concerned with the pipes since they may not be used over a season or two.

My RO does use quite a bit of water to harvest the 5 gallons that it produces in a day. I think the rate is slightly lower than 80% though. The waste water goes into my septic tank.

I'm thinking here....So if I change my spa water every 90 days, I am roughly dumping what would amount to  5 gallons a day (450 gallon tub). My RO dumps roughly 4 gallons a day to make my drinking water   ...just putting it all in perspective ..now lets add in those extra towels that I need to wash for my tubbers (who refuse to use them a second time!)..and holy cow, my water is not nearly as expensive or wasteful as my soaking!!  

[squale]

well here is another interesting thing... today I cleaned my filter (sprayed them with filter cleaner, let it stand for 15 minutes, washed them down with hose on high pressure), then I put them back in the spa and I added my weekly dosing of 2 ounces of MPS for the weekly shocking.  Whenever I add MPS to the tub, the tub foams out of control, literally I get foam coming almost over the edges of the tub after putting in MPS and running the jets on high for about 10-15 minutes.  I don't get this same amount of foam when I do a Dichlor shocking.

So why is it that MPS is producing all this foam?

[Chad]

well here is another interesting thing... today I cleaned my filter (sprayed them with filter cleaner, let it stand for 15 minutes, washed them down with hose on high pressure), then I put them back in the spa and I added my weekly dosing of 2 ounces of MPS for the weekly shocking.  Whenever I add MPS to the tub, the tub foams out of control, literally I get foam coming almost over the edges of the tub after putting in MPS and running the jets on high for about 10-15 minutes.  I don't get this same amount of foam when I do a Dichlor shocking.

So why is it that MPS is producing all this foam?

I've never heard of mps causing foam before. My guess is that you're not getting all the filter cleaner out of the filters before reinstallation. Filter cleaner is a foam causing s.o.b.
What I like to do after a filter cleaning in which I use cleaner is to hose them off with a high pressure nozzle, then fill my bathtub up with staight tap water and repeatedly submerge and remove them about 20 times in a timely manner. I've never had any foaming whatsoever doing this before reinstallation. Might be worth a try next time.....

[Bonibelle]

Squale, I have only had a foaming problem once before in my tub and it turned out that it was from a heavy contamination (cloudy water and a super shock) when I first was learning water management...I guess as the microorganisms are destroyed they cause a foam....that was until the last time I put in cleaned filters!  I am always so careful about spraying my filters with filter cleaner, soaking the filters in HOT water and then rinsing thoroughly with the filter cleaning wand I bought from Doc. Then I give them one final soak in high concentration of bromine before putting them back in my tub. I guess somewhere along the process I was distracted or something, anyway I must not have done a very good job of rinsing...So we had a bubble bath when we turned on the air.
My solution to that was: instead of hitting the tub with the anti foam product, take a big spoon and scoop the foam out of the tub. It took me a looong time, but I cleared up the foam that I am sure was a result of an inadequate rinse job.

so your foam may be from your filter cleaner, or it could be a result of the organic material from the bacterial contamination that turned your water cloudy to begin with.

[Cyn]

This is just a reminder...you commented that you get foam after tub users with suits on have been in the tub.  Suits that aren't triple or more times rinsed after being washed with soap/detergent will produce foam.  They should actually just be 'washed' in the washing machine without any soap/detergent.  And any lotion products on the skin, or shampoo or conditioning products if the hair is submerged will bring a ton of foam.  

[Vinny]

As has been said - filter cleaner is really bad for foaming ... I have soaked the filters then clean with a hose 5x and it still foams.

Are you adding straight MPS or a combo MPS/whatever. MPS tends not to foam. Actually it has the opposite effect, it will break down foam. I have done as I said with the scooping of foam and my tub had some that I just couldn't get. I added MPS and in 20 minutes (a jet cycle) the foam was gone.

First water, a month old - dump and refill!