Epsom salt for soaking

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gtojohn

gtojohn

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Apr 8, 2011
79
Its spa season once again. Closed my pool about a month ago and now plan on spending my nights over the next 5 months in the spa. I'm very active and my work is very physical, I've got a lot of aches and pains...imagine the begining of North Dallas Forty :p Soaking in Magnesium Sulfate, epsom salt helps fatigue and pain. Its not the same as 'salt', I'm not trying to sanitize with it. My spa heat is electric, Jacuzzi flow thru. From a previous post it sounds like you might add 1 lb per 50 gallons, with some folks adding up to 5 lbs per 50 gallons.

How many people out there soak in Epsom Salt? Whats your mix ratio?
 
1 pound of magnesium sulfate per 50 gallons is 2,396 mg/L (ppm) magnesium sulfate. Though that's a high total hardness level, magnesium only forms scale at much, much higher levels. It is only an issue in total hardness when it comes to forming soap scum, just as with calcium, by forming magnesium stearate. The high sulfate level might be a problem for plaster surfaces or grout in tile, but those aren't usually found in acrylic/fiberglass spas.
 
If you were to use 5 pounds per 50 gallons, then you are getting so high in TDS that the increase in conductivity of the water could cause metal corrosion. Even at the 2400 ppm level that's getting pretty high for spas and some spas may have their warranty voided at such levels. Spas aren't necessarily designed to resist metal corrosion as strongly as some pools. This may be particularly true if the heat exchanger in the spa heater is copper instead of cupro-nickel or titanium.
 
I ended up adding 3lbs to approximately 250 gallons. This feels about right. My spa is 10+ years old, so no concerns about warranty. Might have been psychosomatic, but I felt better in the 1st 5 minutes. I am curious if I'll need to increase the frequency of water changes. Second night all was good, felt right and smelt right. Water wasn't as hot, below 100f, I didn't feel the instant relief as the night before, but I could soak longer. This morning I'd say I feel better than avg, even though there wasn't much sleep with our baby and the 3yr old woke up before sunrise. This was fresh water on Sunday. I haven't added borax yet. I'll try to monitor my fc and balance to see if there's any effect on usage. This might change what I do with the "old water", I normally drain it into my pool.
 
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