What Is Your Regiment For Healthy Water

[xring600]

Hello all. We are new to the hot tub world with one in our home for the past month. We filled the tub, added a pool frog with the mineral and bromine cartridge along with some brom start. I am testing the water every so often and only find the PH high. Wife is beginning to have little red bumps only on her neck and down to her bust line. We have a 250 gallon Viking II tub. Thanks for any advice on what else I need to be doing to ensure healthy water.

[TwinCitiesHotSpring]

fairly simple...maintain proper pH, Alk. and Calcium Hardness, keep the spa sanitized with at least 1ppm chlorine or bromine, keep your filters clean and drain and refill 2-4x per year depending on usage

[JohnnyK45]

Great hot tub; we bought our Viking 2 a few months back and it's about 4-5ft outside our back door.  We use our tub every other day.  I went with a simple solution by EcoOne.

Two things you need...

1) EcoOne Spa Monthly - all natural, you pour one bottle in per month.

http://www.ecoonespa.com/spa-products-2/spa-monthly/

2) EcoOne Spa Shock - simply chuck in one packet when you exit the hot tub; and once a week, every Wed/Thurs. when I get out, I chuck in two packets.

http://www.ecoonespa.com/spa-products-2/oneshock/

That's it; your levels will be spot on everytime.  EcoOne is simple to use and it works perfectly. 

I swap out our filters every 2 weeks; with the Viking 2 and the two filters, a snap.  You can get those filters online for around $9 each.  I replace with 2 clean ones, then soak and clean the other ones, then put those on the shelf to go back into the hot tub next time I swap out filters.

[chem geek]

EcoOne OneShock is Dichlor.  EcoOne Spa Monthly is clarifier and surfactant.

Each OneShock packet is 1/4 ounce of Dichlor.  Their recommendation of one packet per 250 gallons is 4.1 ppm FC.  One packet will oxidize the waste of roughly 25 person-minutes of soaking in a hot (104ºF) spa if there is no ozonator.  Again, it's identical to using any Dichlor product, but is pre-measured in packets that dissolve in the water.

[JohnnyK45]

A final point too about my experience in using EcoOne.  I have never purchased any of the multitude of "correction" products; your PH, calcium and alkalinity balancers, no de-foaming stuff, no scum or water line issues, etc. - levels are always spot-on.  When I bought our spa, I wanted everything to be simple and easy; from the location of our tub, down to the maintenance - I don't want to waste any of my time farting around trouble-shooting and making trips to go buy "enhancers" and other water maintenance related products.  Chucking in one packet from my doorway when I get out is about as foolproof and easy as it gets in my opinion (and worth every dime).  Anyway, good luck and enjoy your new Viking Spa!

[vangoghsear]

Wife is beginning to have little red bumps only on her neck and down to her bust line. We have a 250 gallon Viking II tub. Thanks for any advice on what else I need to be doing to ensure healthy water.

I have a 280 gallon Bullfrog 151R.  I sanitize with Nature2 and Chlorine. 

My pH out of the tap is very high.  I get that down first by adding pH down and running the jets for an hour and repeating till it levels out. 

I use Dichlor for the first few weeks to build the CYA then switch to 6% liquid Clorox.

I had a similar situation to your wife's during my first month owning the tub.  The problem was my tub was a floor model and I had never thought to sanitize the upper edges above the waterline, so as I would rest my arms on the edges, I would get little red bumps on the underside of my arms, my neck, and face from putting my hands on those areas after touching the edges of the tub.  I read on a forum (probably this one) that someone suggested cleaning the tub above water line with super chlorinated water mixture (a couple ounces Clorox in a 3/4 gallon of water is what I use) scrubbing it with a plastic hot tub mitt.  Since starting doing that (every couple of weeks) I have had no other problems with any rash.

[vangoghsear]

Also, I clean the underside of the lid with the super chlorinated water.  When I finish the cleaning routine, I dump some of the super chlorinated water on my tub's plastic steps, then pour the remainder into my footwash basin, then I hose down the filter, the underside of the lid, the edges of the tub, the steps and my EZ-Pad edges.  The whole cleaning procedure takes ten minutes tops.