Confused! Added Ozone and now bromine levels dropped!

[jmauceri]

I have a 2008 Marquis Epic with the Spa Frog System.  I use my tub every day and after trial and error I found my water would balance well if I shocked (non-chlorine) every time I used the spa.  After some time I realized my Ozonator wasn't working.  I said "ah ha! that's why i have to shock daily to keep by bromine levels where they should be".  So I replaced the tube style stock ozonator with a Del Ozone MCD-50 ozonator and figured life would be good.  Well the opposite seems to be.  Unless I shock daily my bromine levels read zero!  Before knowing this, and after a few days of not shocking, my water started getting cloudy.  What's up with that?  I thought ozone helped reduce chemical use.  I'm going through more shock than ever!

If a chemical genius could explain this to me I would greatly appreciate it.

FYI Spa Fog at setting 4 and PH, Alkalinity and CH at the middle of the spectrum.

[chem geek]

Did you ever add sodium bromide to create a bromide bank?  If not, then the ozone has no bromide to convert to bromine.  Eventually your addition of bromine may build up a bromide bank, but initially you need to create one.

[jmauceri]

Wow,  I had no idea. Thank you so much. Why wouldn't marquis include that little tidbit in their startup instructions for the Spa frog system with the ozonator?

[jmauceri]

Sorry to be a pest, but would the Spa Frog Jump Start pack of Sodium Dichloro-s-triazinetrione provide the base bromide?  I'm due for a routine water change, so I'm wondering if I need to still add the sodium bromide to the new water.

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

No

[dave48103]

After some time I realized my Ozonator wasn't working.

How did you know your ozonator wasn't working? I've often wondered about that with our spa. I know there's a stream of water coming out of the outlet, but how does one know that the ozonator is actually doing anything?

[jmauceri]

After some time I realized my Ozonator wasn't working.

How did you know your ozonator wasn't working? I've often wondered about that with our spa. I know there's a stream of water coming out of the outlet, but how does one know that the ozonator is actually doing anything?

A few different ways. First,  the O3 message on my display would only stay on briefoh. Second,  there was no glow from the ozonator itself. After I replaced it,  is completely obvious because I can now smell the ozone.

[jmauceri]

I want to give an update to this thread.  Chem Geek was dead on with his advice.  I performed a water change and I used the Spa Frog Starter packet along with Sodium Bromide.  It's been over 4 weeks now and my water has been crystal clear from the beginning and I'm now only shocking one a week with the ozonator running well. 

Chem Geek, thank you so much for the advise!  I still don't understand why the manufacturer wouldn't recommend the Sodium Bromide.

Regards,
Joe

[chem geek]

There are lots of things about pool water chemistry that manufacturers either don't know or don't tell.  However, most do recognize that for a bromine system one usually starts out by creating a bromide bank by adding sodium bromide.  That was a pretty lame mistake for them.  Most don't understand the chlorine/CYA relationship and many don't understand the TA/pH relationship.  There are good ones that do understand these things; you'll find them on this forum.