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My friend has an outboor tub and he told me that he uses Bacquacil and swears by it. Here is a piece of an email he sent to me about it in response a note to him about my water problems."I change our water once every 6 months without any problem. Just made a change and will do it again mid summer. Test the water once a week and make any changes if necessary, usually the only item I have to put in is 2 oz of a product called Bacquacil. The ozonator takes care of the rest. That is the reason to have the ozonator, to reduce the amount of chemicals used. I used to use Bromine when living in WV on first tub but Lynn has a reaction to it on her skin not to mention the bromine smell. The chems I have used for the past 12 years is made by Baqua Spa. All chlorine and bromine free. BTW if you have a water softner for your house, you need to put it on "by pass" for a fill up. The ozonator sees the salt as a foreign object and works hard to remove the salts. You need to take good care of the ozonator as a replacement will set you back close to $400.00."As you can see, he doesn't mention any problems with pH or hardness and he is on well water in extreme southwestern PA (generally hard sulphorous water). Perhaps it is not the product, but your water. Maybe you can have a good analysis of your tap water done and ask Bacquacil for advice.I asked my Jacuzzi dealer about the Bacqua product line and she said that they have a terrible time with it and that the last customer they had try it turned their water black and it took a long time to get it clean again. I should've asked why, but didn't because I knew then I wasn't interested in that system anymore. Plus most people who like it will admit that it is more expensive, but you use less of it.My guess is that the Bacquacil clashes with the Nature2 chemical stick. The lesson is: if you are going to change your chem system, drain the tub, clean it well and start with fresh water.That is how I solved my water problem. Now I use the ozonator, a chem stick and mps (Activate) 2 oz after each use and a 4 oz shock once a week and test srtips every other day. My water is crystal clear and feels great even though we both use it twice a day for about 30 minutes each time. We get a clear bath tub ring that we clean once a week. Previously we had a gritty layer on the horizontal tub surfaces below the water line but not any more. That must've been the result of operator error too.Good luck.
Had a tub years ago so feel out of the loop.. baqua spa was recommended for the tub but CANNOT get the PH, hardness and alkalinity down and we're on our 3rd dose of Ph decreaser...any suggestions? Thanks , thats how I feel right about now.
Also- We tried baqua and couldn't get it to work. We didn't have problems with Ph or alk though. Baqua just wasn't for us. Made us cough & no dealer or even the Baqua people could help.
The gritty surface below the water line is caused by high pH. The best way to fix that is to lower pH and allow the calcium to precipitate back into the water.
Did you get your alkalinity in line before trying to get the pH and the rest to follow? It's gotta be stable before anything else is monkeyed with.
Really? I was under the impression that Alk has to be stable or the pH fluctuates.