Hopefully someone can help me out with my foaming and loss of bromine problems with my 3-month old, 400 gallon spa (with an ozonator). I'm new to spa maintenance and am trying to get the hang of the bromine system (I've read lots of posts here & have the Taylor test kit and book).
I'm using a bromide salt/oxidizer one-step system (described in the Taylor book as dichlor with sodium bromide) as a bromine source - its the only bromine source I can find locally. After balancing the water I add the prescribed amount of the bromide/oxidizer solution, which drives the bromine to a high level. After a couple hours the bromine level reads good and all seems well. The next day, without any bather load, the bromine is gone. I then add MPS shock and the bromine level is back up, but its gone again the next day without any bather load.
The bromide/oxidizer bottle says to use it for both bromine level and shock, but this seemed like it would lead to excessive bromide levels, so I've been using the MPS for shock. (The spa vendor manual says to not use Clorine-based shock.)
After using the spa I add more shock as prescribed here. After about a week of use perhaps every other day (and lots of shocking to get the bromine level up) we get a lot of foaming when running the jets. The foam leaves a light-brownish residue on the sides of the spa. I rinse off the filter a couple times a week but don't notice a difference in foam generation.
I've dumped and refilled 2X trying to get rid of the foam.
Any ideas on what could be causing the loss of bromine or the foam/browning residue? Or anything else I am doing wrong?
Thanks in advance for any help,
Ron Pagano
I'm using a bromide salt/oxidizer one-step system (described in the Taylor book as dichlor with sodium bromide) as a bromine source - its the only bromine source I can find locally. After balancing the water I add the prescribed amount of the bromide/oxidizer solution, which drives the bromine to a high level. After a couple hours the bromine level reads good and all seems well. The next day, without any bather load, the bromine is gone. I then add MPS shock and the bromine level is back up, but its gone again the next day without any bather load.
The bromide/oxidizer bottle says to use it for both bromine level and shock, but this seemed like it would lead to excessive bromide levels, so I've been using the MPS for shock. (The spa vendor manual says to not use Clorine-based shock.)
After using the spa I add more shock as prescribed here. After about a week of use perhaps every other day (and lots of shocking to get the bromine level up) we get a lot of foaming when running the jets. The foam leaves a light-brownish residue on the sides of the spa. I rinse off the filter a couple times a week but don't notice a difference in foam generation.
I've dumped and refilled 2X trying to get rid of the foam.
Any ideas on what could be causing the loss of bromine or the foam/browning residue? Or anything else I am doing wrong?
Thanks in advance for any help,
Ron Pagano