brown slimey sludge

[murgurl]

Help...we just received our sundance capri friday eve..Hooked up, filled up, heated up!!!! Its great except for the brown sludge floating at the edge!!! I called dealer and he said it would go away..cause was using the Baqua system?!! Anyone else have this problem,,,its sooooo disapointing to see ugly water??HELP

[Steve]

I knew you were using Baqua just by reading your title. Get rid of that crap... I mean sanitizer.

Steve

[Chas]

That tends to be the calling-card of Baqua. No odor, no bleaching of clothes, gentle on skin, but it makes a funky gunk at the waterline. It will get better as the weeks go by. I always tell people to give it three months. If you don't like it, a simple water change and filter cleaning and you can switch to chlorine or whatever.

I knew a guy who collected all of his gunk and rolled it into a ball. After several years, he hollowed it out and moved his mother-in-law into it. Had enough left over to re-grout the tile in his kitchen.

Kidding....

[lynnette]

We just also hooked our Tiger River Caspian 1 week ago and are using Baqua Spa.  I also had the same thing happen.  I went to the Hot Springs store the next day and told them about the sludge. They sent a tec out to test our water, he told us we had to much iron in our water (city water), suggested to get Baqua Spa Metal Control.  They actually gave me 2 bottles of metal control, I put the suggested amount in and our water is clear now, no more sludge.  I also cleaned our filter for 24 hours in the Baqua Spa filter cleaner.  Checked filter yesterday no sludge on it at all.  Don't know it this will help you but it did for us.  Good Luck   Lynnette

[Chas]

You will have to clean your filter more often in Baqua - and not just by rinsing: you will have to soak it in Baqua filter cleaner.

The sludge does get better over time. Most Baqua dealers will test your water for you  - and offer suggestions to minimize problems.

[bodguy]

Chaz,
Is the brown sludge a reaction to the chlorine that is in the city tap water? My new Tub comes with baqua, dealer told me to cycle the tub for a day and use it once before I treat  the water with baqua to let the chlorine that exists in the city water cycle out?

Seems to make sense that if it gets better over time that the baqua reacts with something?

Should I tell the dealer to pound the baqua and give me something else???

[HotTubMan]

What the heck is BaquaSpa? Haven't seen that here in Ontario.

BTW another common cause of "brown sludge" that I have encountered in a by-product of sun tan lotions!

[spahappy]

What the heck is BaquaSpa? Haven't seen that here in Ontario.

BTW another common cause of "brown sludge" that I have encountered in a by-product of sun tan lotions!

Last weekend my daughter had a hottub party with 11 teenage girls.

Two of the girls had self tanning lotion on. What a brown slimy mess that was.

We rinsed the filter, put in a first filter and reset the filtration for more hours. I shocked the tub and by yesterday the water was perfect.

The first filter was just slimy. That stuff if awful in a spa.

Spahappy

[Brewman]

What the heck is BaquaSpa? Haven't seen that here in Ontario.

BTW another common cause of "brown sludge" that I have encountered in a by-product of sun tan lotions!

Baquaspa is a non chlorine spa treatment alternative.
Brewman

[Chas]

Click http://www.baquaspa.com/to see the Baqua site. I have no idea if it's available in Canada?

[SpaGirl]

Yucky!

Brown slime?

Will a dealer recommend what to put in your spa water?  Or is that bought somewhere else?

Suddenly I have started questioning my spa shopping!  Just kidding

[Brewman]

A spa dealer will be able to counsel you based on what type of water you have.  That's one reason buying a spa from a spa dealer is so important.  You will not get that type of support from Costo, Sam's Club, or Home Depot.  

Don't get too concerned about things like this just yet.  
For instance, we use Baqua, and have had no problems at all with any sludge.  The first few months we owned our tub we had very minor waterline deposits, which easily came off with the surface cleaner and scrubby pad supplied in our start up kit.  Since then, I've noticed no waterline stains, or only very minor ones.  And we've never had brown crud form.  Maybe we're just lucky with our water.
Brewman

[scout045]

Same here.  We have used Baquaspa for about 2 months. Our water has remained crystal clear.  We did have a problem with the  infamous "cough", and our dealer told us we might. So he already had a solution in place if we experienced it.  We  raised our calcium hardness and added a little extra waterline control, and problem vanished.  However we do have well water.  I have never seen any brown sludge, just the occasional waterline deposits like Brewman mentioned and they are always in the filter compartment.          

[Brewman]

Scout:

Could you elaborate a bit on the infamous cough?
I've experienced a bit of this myself, but I don't know much about it.  How much did you increase your waterline control by, and how long did it take to notice results, etc...

TIA

Brewman

[new owner]

Had to chime in. We've had our Sweetwater (a Sundance make) Cayman for about two weeks. We are using SoftSoak--which is a baguinide (sp??) system just like Baqua. We started getting the brown sludge on the waterline after the first few days. I scrub it off (which is not easy--this stuff is really sticky) but it comes back and is getting worse.

Our test strip readings have shown the pH to be a little high, so I just took our water to the Jacuzzi dealer today (we did not buy from them but they are 1/2 mile from home, so thought we'd try them for chemical maintenance). Dealer said the brown sludge was from all of the maufacturer's stuff working its way throgh the system. He suggested draining the tub and starting over.

Any opinions on this?