Clean water at last!!!!!!

[Backpains]

I'm so tickled!!!!! I spent from 1:30 mst to about 9 pm trying to drain...refill..and get the water chems at the right levels. Checked it this morning and it's low on alkalinity low on Bromine, so I added both and PH is great right where I want it.

I told hubby when we went to soak last night at 10pm that now we know what clear clean water is suppose to look like   I'm sooooooo glad I drained it!!!!! Thank you all for all the feedback!

Ohh btw..I figured out that the tub is doing more for my back than I figured because I was without it all afternoon and most of the evening and I was in so much pain! So..I think it's adding more to my pain relief than anticipated

BP

[bosco0633]

backpains,

I have been following your posts on water quality.  I just want to know how you like bromine for one, and two how you have found maintaining the tub.  Is it easier than you expected?

Also, do you think the water became cloudy because you are a fish and live in the tub?  No seriously, do you think because you use it so much

[Backpains]

backpains,

I have been following your posts on water quality.  I just want to know how you like bromine for one, and two how you have found maintaining the tub.  Is it easier than you expected?

Also, do you think the water became cloudy because you are a fish and live in the tub?  No seriously, do you think because you use it so much

Bosco...

The bromine actually I was surprised how much it's not irritating my skin, I have very dry skin and seems the tub has made it to where I don't have to use lotion that often and I've totally quit using the baby oil.   Maintaining the tub has been much easier than I thought I just add a tspn of bromine after we are done with the tub in the evening and waaalaa it's good on readings in the am. Just the draining and refilling is a litttle bit of a pain but, I'll get that down to an exact sicience before too long. The weekly chems I do now on Mondays since I drained the tub then.

As far as the Draining I had to do yesterday why it was...my dealer put it like this "Vickie, You use your hot tub 6 times more than the average person..nothing wrong with that, but we just have to train you and your hubby to use the chems, clean the filters and watch your water differently than most!" Yes I do think the reason I ended up with cloudy water was because I am a fish and stay in the water so much!!  

[Kelly]

BP, glad you posted that - I've had the same experience w/ bromine.
I no longer need to use lotion on my arms and legs to get rid of that "ashen" dry look that chlorine gave me. I was ready to bite the bullet and start using more lotion to compensate for the drying I expected from the bromine & the hot water.
I was amazed that the opposite's been the case.

[bulmer4nc]

BP, glad you posted that - I've had the same experience w/ bromine.
I no longer need to use lotion on my arms and legs to get rid of that "ashen" dry look that chlorine gave me. I was ready to bite the bullet and start using more lotion to compensate for the drying I expected from the bromine & the hot water.
I was amazed that the opposite's been the case.

I think this is a personal thing that affects people differently.  In our case Bromine was VERY hard on our skin and really dried it out.  Since our switch to Dichlor we've had no issues with the water and our skin has been great.  We also put the dichlor in after we get out so by the time we go in the next day there's not much (if any) chlorine left in the water.  This is why we've got no smell or chlorine affects on our skin I think.  If you're using Bromine with the tablets and floater then you have a constant feed into your water and the sanitizer levels are much higher when you go in the tub.  In our case we also got tired of the smell of Bromine too as it can get quite strong if the levels are high.

[Backpains]

If you're using Bromine with the tablets and floater then you have a constant feed into your water and the sanitizer levels are much higher when you go in the tub.

I agree that it's a personal decision as to which sanitiser to use. But I disagree with your last statement that using a feeder causes high levels to concentrate...I have not had a problem with this if anything kepping the feeder full enough to keep the levels going is my biggest problem. So I generally have to add the concentrate to keep up.

[bulmer4nc]

I agree that it's a personal decision as to which sanitiser to use. But I disagree with your last statement that using a feeder causes high levels to concentrate...I have not had a problem with this if anything kepping the feeder full enough to keep the levels going is my biggest problem. So I generally have to add the concentrate to keep up.

What I meant was that with a Bromine floater, the goal is to have a constant feed of bromine into your water so that at any time there is a bromine residual in the water.  That being the case, when you go in the tub there will be a higher level of sanitizer than if you use the dichlor method that I use.   We add dichlor after each use.   Chlorine (dichlor) burns off in the hot water and when I enter the tub the next day there is basically no chlorine left.  I think this is why our skin has been so much better after switching.  

Also, when we were using bromine we had an issue that quite often the bromine level would creep up to a high level and I couldn't get it down.  I would remove the floater and it sometime 2-3 days to get it back down to 3ppm or so.  Whenever this happened our ALK would drop fast and cause our ph to go way up.

In your case you will likely never see this as you use your tub way more often than most.  Your usage patterns will likely require a lot more bromine than I was ever using as we were only using our tub once a day.

[Backpains]

Bulmer:

Yeah true. but since I use my tub 5-6 times per day or as my dealer says 6 times more than the average person, the bromine never has a chance to creep up or to get out of control....if anything we end up at the end of the day adding a tspn of bromine to insure levels are fine the next morning. When I drained and refilled the hot tub, it actually made the feeder do the catch up routine again with it. So I've had to add more bromine in the am sometimes.

Like you and I agree to, sanitization is a very personal decision..with me chlorine or dichlor was out of the question because my sinuses and hubbys are allergic to that product. So it was not an option for us. Many people on this forum that are just shopping for tubs at this point and time are lurking about wanting info on sanitizers and I tell them it's a personal decision. I asked my dealer when I was getting ready to purchase, what is the diff between the two he said that the bromine works better in high water temps than the chlorine, do not know if that is true.

[CalicoskiesNC]

Why do dealers always want to push the bromine?

[bulmer4nc]

I asked my dealer when I was getting ready to purchase, what is the diff between the two he said that the bromine works better in high water temps than the chlorine, do not know if that is true.

I've heard this too.  Our dealer actually told us that bromine was actually designed primarily for hot tubs and that it was more effective at higher temps.  The end result is that you need more chlorine to do the same work as bromine in the higher temps.

Our dealer recommended bromine so that's why we started with it.  I guess because of our usage patterns and maybe the nature of our water it just didn't work the way we liked.

I'm glad you are happy with bromine and it seems to be working well for you.  I hope your tub continues to bring at least some relief for your back.

Ken