Trouble maintaining PH and Chlorine levels in my hot tub

harleysilo · May 10, 2013

OKAY so i checked it this morning, high again, when i lifted the cover it was heating, so running on low speed......so i never adjust the air intakes....that allow air to be pulled into the jets.....i always just leave them on MAX air coming into the jets....hot tub looked like this (1st light, morning light is why it looks a little funny, of course everyone knows things are true at first light)

So i shut the air intakes down to nothing, a minute later

Possibly that was the cause.....no ozone, no waterfalls... perhaps i should adjust it (when not in use) so that all the water is coming out of the one large jet that cause the water to just swirl around the tub, vs. letting the water go through the 4 sets of jets that are around the tub wall.......it's just one twist of a ring to change between the two.

linen · May 10, 2013

Definitely that was the cause...that is a lot of aeration. If I forget to turn close my air intake on my jets when I am done in the hot tub at night, then my ph will rise like crazy (even on low speed) by the next night.

harleysilo · May 10, 2013

Okay got home and PH 6.8, so that was the cause. Now to see how it behaves over the weekend and after use with aeration. Seems like aeration will bring it up, but will it fall on its own now if I turn off all aeration when not in use? I ask because this morning I hit it with MA.

linen · May 10, 2013

My ph constantly creeps up in my tub...mostly due to aeration I think even though I don't purposefully aerate often, the air jets let a little air slip in even when on low. For yours just let the jets run a little while on high, and your ph will be up in range.

harleysilo · May 10, 2013

I guess what I'm wonderIng is say on Saturday if people are in and of for several hours, I'm wondering if that does in fact raise PH, will it just come down or am I going to need to add MA....I can handle having to make adjustments after significant use, just not this daily rise with little or no use which we've figured out.

linen · May 10, 2013

If you can eliminate the aeration, then the daily ph rise should be very low. However after a lot of use including running the aerator a lot, most likely you will have to adjust it.

chem geek · May 10, 2013

The pH shouldn't fall even with no aeration unless you are adding some chemical to lower the pH. If you let the chlorine level drop, then the pH will fall because the usage/consumption of chlorine is an acidic process. If you use Dichlor, then the pH will fall because it is net acidic -- it's fairly pH neutral upon addition but again chlorine usage/consumption is acidic. If you use non-chlorine shock (MPS) then that is acidic.

harleysilo · May 21, 2013

Okay so it's been like 10 days and Ph is sitting pretty, so thanks to all for walking me through it!

:party:

Now quick question. Yesterday my 250 gallon hot tub was subjected to 2.5 hours of 5 kids randomly jumping in and out of it "warming up" while swimming....the pool was 95 so no idea why this was necessary of course that is also just WHAT KIDS DO... at any rate when i arrive i look into the hot tub and it's cloudy...i'm talking like there is a cloud in the water.....so whilst non of the moms are lookin on i grab the jug o bleach and give it a glugg. After everyone leaves i check and FC is 6 PPM and CC is 0 and PH is 7.5

I have to assume FC was 3PPM when kids got in. No idea what it was when i added bleach.

My question is what can be done to PREVENT the cloudiness of this kid abuse? What exactly is the cloudiness made of?

I cleaned the filter real quick, it was dirty but not nasty dirty. I'll see if it's clear tonight.

chem geek · May 21, 2013

When you have an extremely high bather load and if the people in the water didn't rinse/shower first so aren't completely clean, then you are going to get cloudiness. It just needs time for some of it to get oxidized by chlorine and the rest to get caught into the filter. You can't really prevent it. It's like saying how can you prevent water turning brown when you throw a lot of mud into it. It's going to turn brown and will take time to clear.