Paper mold in hot tub

[jons]

I need some help.  I've been battling what I believe is paper mold in my hot tub for the 5th straight week.  I've ran one dose of spa purge and 4 doses of swirl away plus I have been snaking fish tank air line hooked to my water hose in an attempt to flush the jet lines.  I've also super shocked and super chlorinated with the granules and it's getting better but the last two weekends I've flushed about the same amount of paper mold out of the lines.  I know this is an old topic and I'm ready to try swirl away followed by adding Clorox and see if that will finally knock it out.  The problem is I can't figure out how many gallons of bleach to use.  My tub is only 225 gallons.  Please help, I feel like I'm in the 15th round both fighters need a knock out to win.
   

[MarKee]

I don't think you need Clorox if you've been using a lot of granular chlorine.  I would use a really heavy dose, 1/2 cup of granular chlorine.  Sometimes when the pipe-mold/bio-film gets really bad it can take 2-3 drain and fills to completely get rid of it.  You might try run some more purge/Swirl-Away through the plumbing again.  Also, let the Swirl-Away run through the plumbing for an hour, and also let the chlorine run through the plumbing for an hour.  Make sure the diverter valves are turned in all directions so that you get it through every plumbing line.

[jons]

On the spa purge and swirl away I've followed the directions to the letter.  I do believe that it's working however this must be a very bad case of paper mold because nothing is completely getting rid of it.  Due to my work schedule I'm unable to do anything during the work week however on the weekends I am purging per the directions, draining, refilling and still seeing the paper mold.  This is both Saturday and Sunday.  Today made my 5th consecutive weekend of this routine.  During the work week I am super chlorinating, leaving the filter in and keeping my fingers crossed.  Like I said, it's getting better but I've seem to have hit a wall where there was no noticeable difference between todays purge, empty, refill and last weekends purge, empty, refill. 

Will using a very high dose of bleach for an hour do any good?  Will it cause any harm to the tub?  My wife has rheumatoid arthritis and the hot tub is a blessing for her during the colder months.  In fact it's really the only reason why we bought it several years ago.

[Vinny]

Try some Ahh-some cleaner, it may work a little better. http://www.ahh-some.com/tubs.php

I let my tub go and used it with a large dose of chlorine and it cleaned the pipes very well. I did 3 doses to my tub because of how long I let it go, you may need to do the same too. I would also let the ahh-some sit overnight letting whatever is in it break up the water mold and as it removes layers the bleach should kill it.

You can use bleach if you have been using dichlor, actually if you drain and refill and use bleach without stabilizer it is actually more potent and corrosive as well but 1 hour should be OK. I agree that you need to turn every knob , let diverters sit open to one side for a short while 5-10 minutes then the other side for the same amount of time make sure you don't leave it to a certain side, run the air as well ... run pumps for the hour as well make sure that all the jets are open as well.

[Quickbeam]

Here's a thread from a few days ago that might help you (http://www.whatsthebest-hottub.com/forum/index.php/topic,19152.0.html). My reply on this thread was reply #3. I laid out what my dealer told me to do and it worked quite well. One thing to note was the PH. My dealer was pretty insistent that I needed to lower the PH to get rid of the bio film. Good luck with it.

[Quickbeam]

Sorry, also meant to second what Vinny said about Ahh-Some. To my knowledge, it's the best cleaner on the market.

[hottubdan]

What are you doing to super chlorinate?  How much chlorine are you using?

[jons]

To super chlorinate I've been using 1 cup of chlorinating concentrate every 2-3 days during the week.  Saturday morning I use swirl away per the directions and drain the tub.  I remove all the jets and snake the plumbing with fish tank air line hooked to my garden hose.  Yesterday was my 5th straight weekend of performing this process and I'm still getting paper mold out of the lines when I snake them with the air line. 

I've read about Ahh-Some but unfortunately nobody in my area carries it so I'll have to order it.  What should I do with my tub until next weekend?  I've noticed that some of the paper mold is thicker and has longer strings while other is much smaller and almost completely translucent.  Are the smaller more translucent pieces new growth?  I've been concerned about the possibility of new growth due to only having two days a week to work on this problem.

Thanks for all the advice. 

[Vinny]

It may be possible that the amount of stabilizer being added with the chlorine concentrate is affecting the chlorine, this is assuming that you are using dichlor and not any other type of chlorine. You won't have that with bleach so it may be more effective and cheaper.

I think Leslie's Pool sells Ahh-Some and I bought mine from eBay but I'm sure other places online sell it as well..

Are you cleaning your filters in between cleanings? They can get pretty nasty as well. I would also devote an hour a day adding bleach and running the pumps. I don't know if you read Quickbeam's post (I haven't) but maybe follow that. If that doesn't work, use enough dichlor to get to 30 ppm and then use bleach instead of chlorine granuals. Thus will add enough stabilizer in the water to not make the bleach very corrosive and that much stabilizer won't counteract using the bleach for an extended amount of time. As was mentioned PH does affect how chlorine works, lower PH makes more killing ions available, higher PH makes more neutralizing ions available. I would also not assume that the chlorine that you added at 8 am is still in the tub after any given time, test the water, I have had chlorine last less then 20 minutes and I have had chlorine last for days ... So please don't assume anything is "normal".

[Vinny]

I just read Quickbeam's post ... Do that! 

[jons]

I'll follow  Quickbeam's advice.  I've not been testing the water since I've been draining it every weekend so I'll start doing that as well.  I've always used Spa Guard chlorinating concentrate which is sodium dichloro.  We've never had a problem like this until this past winter when I hurt my knee running, had an operation to fix the problem, and about died on the operating table.  By the time I was done rehabbing my knee it was summer and I noticed this problem but didn't know what it was.  I drained the hot tub since we don't use it during the hot summer months without killing all of the paper mold, that appears to have been a very bad mistake.   

Our tub is an Hawkeye Eclipse.  It's only 225 gallons.  It's only got one filter and yes I have been cleaning after each water change.  I've got another bottle of swirl away, it does work some.  As I've said this makes my 5 consecutive weekend of trying to correct this problem.  Should I purge the tub again today with the swirl away or would I be better off to wait until the Ahh-Some arrives and hit it hard next weekend?  If I wait until next weekend what should my plan of attack be for the water that's currently in the tub?  Thanks again for all of the advice. 

[Vinny]

My thoughts ...

If swirl  away is in the water now then leave it in there for today, check the chlorine level (assuming you can differentiate between free chlorine and combined chlorine) and keep it on the high side - over 10 ppm. Depending on the PH, drop it down to below 7.2 (do this before hitting with a high chlorine amount), and run the tub. Check it about an hour later for chlorine and need be add more, check it in the morning as well. When I say add chlorine, use bleach at this point, 2 cups of bleach  should give you over 10 ppm chlorine ... It's about 1 ppm chlorine for every 100 gallons. Make sure you do this every day until the ahh-some comes in or next weekend, empty the tub, rinse, drain, fill up, add the ahh-some and go from there.

The swirl away should continue to eat away at the gunk, the high level of chlorine should kill the gunk, the running of the jets should scour the pipes. With it in 24/7 it should at least keep everything at bay. Next weekend you have a new weapon that will hopefully work and just use bleach as chlorine just don't keep bleach in it for very long periods of time do to its corrosiveness. Be prepared to buy a new filter once this ordeal is over. Another thing if the funds are there buy a sump pump to make emptying the tub quicker, make sure if you have a drain plug that you let the highly chlorinated water run through it as well. If the water doesn't clear up and you are running into another weekend add 30 ppm of chlorine granuals to get stabilizer in the tub and then use bleach as chlorine during the week.

[Quickbeam]

This can be a really frustrating, time consuming process. I really do think if you use Ahh-Some, then bleach, with your PH lowered it is your best bet. Again, as I laid out in my earlier post.

Please also let us know how you make out and what finally does work for you. And once again, good luck with it.

[jons]

Vinny,

I'll do as you said until the Ahh-Some arrives then I'll do as Quickbeam suggested.  Just to be sure, drop the PH below 7.2ppm then keep the free chlorine at 10ppm.  I have no problem getting a new filter however I was advised by my local dealer to not use the filter with the swirl away in?  By the way, their advice didn't work, guess the paper mold was worse then they thought.  I've got a sump pump but unfortunately it passed away during this process and I haven't replaced it yet.   

Thanks again for all the help.  As Quickbeam said this IS a very frustrating process.  I just hope the warmish weather holds out for one more weekend!

[Vinny]

When going for the kill push the chlorine up a lot - I would venture to say 50-100PPM, I have been known to dump 1/2 gallon bleach into 400 gallons ... I doubt anything that can be killed by chlorine will survive that. But I wouldn't keep that up for a week, keeping your free chlorine up past 10 PPM will keep the chlorine high enough that if it is being affected by the stabilizer (which I really believe it could be)  at least you may be able to keep the water mold under control. If you don't have the filter in - great just make sure nothing gets into the tub - that will introduce a whole another problem. And I would still get a new filter because it was in the water while the water mold was growing.

Once you dump the tub next weekend, fill it (you don't really need to heat anything if you are - maybe dissolve the ahh-some in warm water), adjust the PH to less than 7.2, add the ahh-some, get that going and with the pumps on and add in the bleach. Don't be shy with it ... 3 cups (24 oz) should give you over 50 PPM if you use the 8.25% bleach that's out now. As I said earlier - it'll be very aggressive due to no stabilizer and very corrosive if left in for very long. I would run the pumps an hour, drain , refill (run pumps again for a little while to flush out the ahh-some/gunk), drain, refill, add more ahh-some and see what happens with it reacting to the water mold. If you find gunk floating around then add the bleach again. Repeat. If you find that after the refill and running the pumps your water is clear then you might be OK. If not I would add ahh-some again, run the pumps every so often  and add 10/15 PPM chlorine granules (check the chlorine level) and leave it overnight - run the pumps in the morning adding a killing dose of bleach, drain, refill and run pumps - see if anything new has developed.

For me the sides of my tub turned brown at the water line. ALSO - Ahh-some foams out the wazoo!!!! I had some pretty high foaming going on. As I said it took me 3x of doing what I recommended to get my tub to be pretty clean.