Spa Frog experiment under way

[Vinny]

Well, I changed my water yesterday and it didn't heat up in time to soak. At 8 PM last night it was a cool 74º F and my tub doesn't heat all that fast.

So this morning it was at 102º so I opened it up and threw some baking soda in it and threw a teaspoon of dichlor in. Came home tonight and finished balancing the water and put the Frog into the center of the canister.

Since Artesian has short filters, the Frog may not work in the filter, I broke the stick at the bottom most place, the Frog may sit too low. I guess the next one I will cut the frogs head off (protrudes off the top of the canister) and saw off the stick a little lower vs using one of the detents.

The startup procedure was a little vague - shock according to Mfgs recommendations ... do I use MPS or 10 PPM chlorine. I went to the N2 website and read use 1 teaspoon per 250 gallons for startup, so I added 4 teaspoons (6 PPM) of chlorine and told the Frog this was my shock!  Hopefully I don't get a flow error and I'm on my way to Spa Frog utopia ... maybe!

My plan is to use only 1 teaspoon at all times (except if I have a party, none are on the books yet) and see how it goes. Shocking will be mostly MPS and I'm thinking of shocking with chlorine every 3rd week to kill any resistant bacteria.

If it makes my water last longer between doses - great.  I'm thinking it probably won't last longer (probably ozone is the item that does that) but maybe I'll up the dose to 3 PPM if it doesn't and again see how it goes.

[In Canada eh]

Vinny,

    You remind me of "Mikey" from the old Life cereal commercials.  " I don't want to eat this stuff,  I know lets get Mikey to, he won't eat it he hates everything"

   Around here its,  I'm not sure if I should try this, I know lets get Vinny to

Thank you for allowing yourself to be everyone guinea pig,  I look forward to your results

[Chad]

Vinny,

My Nature2 booklet that came with my cartridge states to shock with 1.5 TBS of dichlor for every 250 gallons, upon installation to activate the catridge.

[Vinny]

Although I do have a closed mind, I try to become "enlightened" just in case there really is something to it.

Too may people swear by this stuff even though I think it is a bunch of BS. Of course, people swear to magnet therapy and well I won't go there! Quite honestly, everyone quotes Vermonter and yes I do too. But he uses ozone , N2 and a healthy dose of dichlor with a dichlor shock ... get rid of N2 and ozone he still is treating his tub chemically not trying to skimp on chlorine.

Maybe when I tried it the last time I was too new to hot water care to really appreciate or use it correctly. That's why I'm trying. The same will be with ozone.

My ozonator puts out very little, actually all Dell ozonators put out very little. If adding a better unit maintains better water clarity for a longer period, then I'll be happy. But that's next years experiment.

I will try to keep you guys posted as things pro and con happen.

[Vinny]

Vinny,

My Nature2 booklet that came with my cartridge states to shock with 1.5 TBS of dichlor for every 250 gallons, upon installation to activate the catridge.

Hey Chad!

Thanks for that info ... so maybe I didn't startup the Frog correctly.

Here's the site info:

When:  Purifier Start Up          What to do: Drain and refill your spa. Balance water per dealer guidelines. Add 1 teaspoon of dichlor to spa per 250 gallons (approx. 1000 litres). (Note: 1 teaspoon = 1/4 ounce = 7 grams.)  

Who knows?

[drewstar]

Although I do have a closed mind, I try to become "enlightened" just in case there really is something to it.

Too may people swear by this stuff even though I think it is a bunch of BS. Of course, people swear to magnet therapy and well I won't go there! Quite honestly, everyone quotes Vermonter and yes I do too. But he uses ozone , N2 and a healthy dose of dichlor with a dichlor shock ... get rid of N2 and ozone he still is treating his tub chemically not trying to skimp on chlorine.

Maybe when I tried it the last time I was too new to hot water care to really appreciate or use it correctly. That's why I'm trying. The same will be with ozone.

My ozonator puts out very little, actually all Dell ozonators put out very little. If adding a better unit maintains better water clarity for a longer period, then I'll be happy. But that's next years experiment.

I will try to keep you guys posted as things pro and con happen.

Looking forward to see how this all works out!

so you plan on following the Frog (ie different brand for what we know as  N2 silver magic voodoo beads) program to the letter? Is that what you are doing?

I thought you disconnected your 03 unit?

[Vinny]

Not really.

I plan on using less chlorine to see if the water stays nice. As far as the ozonator - I still have it pumping into the tub but only for 8 hours a day.

If I lose confidence in those voodoo beads, I'll be dosing at regular strength.



And he's my first update - no flow error and I still have over 5 PPM chlorine after putting in 6 PPM last night.

[drewstar]

How's this been working out for you Vinny?

[Vinny]

Drew, you beat me to the punch, I was going to give it a full 2 weeks before reporting out.

So far OK. It'll be 2 weeks on Sat.

I have soaked 3 x since the water change, once with my son. I believe I have pushed the limits of low chlorine and the tub is clear. I am purposely trying to push the low limit on chlorine use to see how it goes. During this period I used too much baking soda , started with a PH of at least 8.0 and have brought it down to approx 7.4 since then.

The first week I used 6 PPM to activate the frog and I thought I had chlorine lock again as the chlorine stayed high for a few days but then it went to normal. I've been using 1 teaspoon which comes out to be about 1 1/2 PPM of chlorine even when 2 people were in the tub.

What I have found is with 2 people by morning there wasn't any chlorine and I hit the tub with another teaspoon that night and in 20 minutes it was at 0.5 PPM free chlorine. Obviously there was bacteria partying in the tub. If the claims are true in what the Frog and N2 do claim ... 1 1/2 PPM should be enough to kill the majority of the bacteria. I haven't tested it after I have been in it alone.

I do think that my water is staying "fresher". My only indication of that is the bubbles. It seems that the bubbles from the return haven't gotten tiny yet. I seem to remember that after a week the bubbles are usually smaller than when it was brand new; not as tiny as when the water really ages.

I don't find the water feels different and I'm not 100% convinced yet that the Frog is letting me get away with lower chlorine. I did run my tub on low chlorine in the past. The problem was there is no room for error. My PH went above 7.8 and there was not enough killing chlorine to do the job and the tub became cloudy.

I am also thinking that if the Frog is doing what it's supposed to do then with my weak ozonator (I'm 100% convinced that a Del ozonator is the lowest ozone producer out there) any ozone that bumps into bacteria should be able to kill it. Maybe I will get an extra few days out of my water between doses due to the Frog/ozone combination. I dosed my tub yesterday morning and if I don't soak,  I let it go for a few days to see.

[Bonibelle]

I expect you to write an S.O.P. for this method, Vinny!

[drewstar]

Thanks Viny, I didn't mean to rush you.    

I can understand the bubbles thing, as this is usually a chararistic of water that has higher TDS, right?  So if you are adding less solids (dichlore) I can see how you see a quality differnce.

Are you considered about bacteria?  How are you going to measure this, or ensure it's safe? Just by water clarity or are there ways to measure this?

[Vinny]

Unlike Vermonter, I am unable to measure bacteria.

I will use the residue chlorine method. I will assume (this is not that sceintific) that if there is a residue after 20 minutes the chlorine has done it's job. I think in the world of chlorine if anything is left after 20 minutes, the chlorine is done working - I'm not 100% sure but I seem to have it in my head that chlorine gets consumed pretty fast killing bacteria. I remember reading accounts of people putting chlorine in and not measuring any residue after 20 minutes. As long as there is free chlorine it will continue to kill bacteria. Vermonter once posted that the CT for a 99% kill is 2500 but I believe that's for an infested item.

Luckily with chlorine, if I find my water not doing so well it's a simple matter of adding a bunch of chlorine and as long as a biofilm doesn't get established it'll kill all the bacteria. In the past I have added 6 or more PPM to a cloudy tub in the morning and soaked in it at night, I still had a chlorine residue of about 2 PPM. I didn't like the idea of soaking in a cloudy tub but aches and pains won out.

Clarity is a unfortunately not a good indicator since the tub can have a lot of bacteria but it is not cloudy yet.

[Bonibelle]

Ok, Vinny, your handy dandy microbial water test kit [glow][/glow]is in the mail.
Simply add 1 ml. of tub water to .05 ml. Sodium thiosulfate, swirl in the super dooper test tube provided.  Pour contents on the enclosed agar plate and swirl to assure the liquid covers the surface of the agar.  Incubate for 48 hours at 35 degrees C. and count the colonies...
One word of caution, don't open the plate after incubation!!
Oh and then you have to calculate how many ml. of water there is in ...300 gallons (or what ever the size of your tub)!  

[Vinny]

Boni,

Don't tempt me!

I do walk around with pens in my pocket (no pocket protector yet) and in the past wore a lab coat. I work on centrifuges and YEARS ago I was trained on CO2 incubators (forgot it all).

I did have a lab manager once accuse me of not knowing what I was doing because I looked at a centrifuge and it was spinning at 500 RPMs less than an identical one that was running at 4700 RPM ... maybe I didn't know what I was doing ...

Vinny

[anne]

1,152,000. roughly.