Spa Frog and Nature2

[Brian3248484]

Hello I'm trying to figure out if I should use my Marquis 2014 the spirit's spa frog system and also place a nature2 mineral sick inside of the hot tub's filter or is that the same as the spa frog's mineral canister?  Also do I have to use the spa frog system or are there other options?

[Sam]

Essentially, the spa frog blue cartridge and nature 2 are the same thing.  There is a difference chemically, which I don't really understand, but they serve the same purpose, thus using both is most likely an unnecessary redundancy.  Nature 2 is metallic silver and spa frog is silver chloride.  I'd love to understand the difference better.  Maybe chemgeek will chime in.

Additionally, you need not use the spa frog system.  You can treat the water in whatever fashion you choose.  There are quite a few methods that are safe and inexpensive, such as the dichlor / bleach method mentioned on this site.  I personally find the spa frog system to be very user friendly and reasonably priced, though using your own bromine floater is probably a little less expensive. 

Good luck!

[Brian3248484]

Thanks so much for the advice.

[chem geek]

There shouldn't be any difference once the silver is in the water since it will be as ions.  As noted in this MSDS for the mineral cartridge in the Nature² system, it is composed of metallic silver, aluminum oxide, and zinc.  Presumably the chlorine or non-chlorine shock (MPS) will oxidize both the silver and the zinc into metal ions that get into the water.

The silver chloride in the Spa Frog is a solid that is sparingly soluble but for the small amount that dissolves it will be the same silver ions as produced from oxidation of silver metal from Nature².

Because of the presence of chloride ions from sodium (or calcium or magnesium) chloride salt in the initial tap water plus additional chloride added from chlorine, the silver in the water will mostly be soluble silver-chloro metal–ligand complexes as described in this link.  At 10 ppm salt, silver ion is at 111 ppb while the sum of all soluble silver ions and complexes is 209 ppb.  At 100 ppm salt it's 11 ppb for silver ion and 121 ppb for that plus complexes.  At 1000 ppm salt it's 1 ppb for silver ion and 247 ppb for that plus complexes.  So basically the concentration of silver ions in water is somewhat self-limiting due to the presence of chloride from salt.  It doesn't really matter whether the source of that silver comes from solid silver oxidized by an oxidizer (chlorine or MPS) or whether it's from dissolving of solid silver chloride.

[Sam]

Thanks for the explanation chemgeek!

[Brian3248484]

Thanks I ordered a couple more spa frogs minerals thanks for stopping me from buying both since it's unnecessary.  All these different chemicals etc are confusing.

[Tman122]

I heard one worked better with bromine (frog) and one worked better with chlorine (N2)

[MarKee]

We've always been trained that the Nature 2 works with chlorine, and doesn't work very well with Bromine, and the SpaFrog Mineral will work well with chlorine or bromine, but I'm not a chemist.  In the Marquis Spirit you will have the inline cartridge holder that can hold the Mineral Cartridge, I would also use the SpaFrog Bromine cartridge that fits in to the same canister. It's about as easy as it gets for water maintenance.

[Brian3248484]

Thanks I plan to use the inline features.