Split by moderator from HERE. Please start a new thread for your specific questions. Thanks, jblizzle
Hello. I am new to this forum and am very impressed with the collective knowledge of all the contributors. I have been doing a lot of reading on this site and have been learning about all the mistakes I have made in maintaining my pool and spa. I have a 400 gallon Artesian Island spa and had the following water chemistry readings this morning.
FC 1.5
CC .5 (most likely less as I used a 10 ml water sample for the Taylor FAS-DPD test)
TA 70
PH 7.8
CH 130
CYA 60
Borates 50 (this is an assumed number as I have some borate test strips on order and have not received them yet. I added 20 Mule Team Borax to the water in quantities based on the pool calculator this weekend).
My hot tub came with a Nature 2 mineral sanitizer which currently lives inside one of my 2 spa filters. I had also been sanitizing with dichlor and recently switched to 8.25% chlorox bleach after reading a thread about dichlor and CYA levels. I have decided to maintain the recommended FC levels based on the Chlorine/CYA chart (5 - 7 ppm based on my current CYA readings) and not trust the Nature 2 mineral sanitizer with lower levels of chlorine to sanitize my hot tub. Last night i added enough bleach to raise my FC levels to 5 ppm. based on the pool calculator.
My questions are as follows:
1. Am I on the right track with my chemistry?
2. Should I be concerned that my CYA level of 60 is much higher than the recommended 20 - 30 levels? Is this reason enough to drain my spa and start over or am I fine with just using bleach to keep my FC levels at 5 - 7 ppm? I plan on draining the spa every 4 months which would put the next scheduled draining in late November.
3. Should I ditch the Nature 2 mineral sanitizer? I have 3 more of the cartridges and planned on putting a new one in every time I drain the spa. Is there any downside to using them and maintaining Chlorine/CYA chart recommended FC levels?
4. Why would my FC levels go from 5 to 1.5 overnight when I have a CC level of less than .5? There were no bathers in the spa last night. This seems very mysterious to me.
Thank you for your help.
Hello. I am new to this forum and am very impressed with the collective knowledge of all the contributors. I have been doing a lot of reading on this site and have been learning about all the mistakes I have made in maintaining my pool and spa. I have a 400 gallon Artesian Island spa and had the following water chemistry readings this morning.
FC 1.5
CC .5 (most likely less as I used a 10 ml water sample for the Taylor FAS-DPD test)
TA 70
PH 7.8
CH 130
CYA 60
Borates 50 (this is an assumed number as I have some borate test strips on order and have not received them yet. I added 20 Mule Team Borax to the water in quantities based on the pool calculator this weekend).
My hot tub came with a Nature 2 mineral sanitizer which currently lives inside one of my 2 spa filters. I had also been sanitizing with dichlor and recently switched to 8.25% chlorox bleach after reading a thread about dichlor and CYA levels. I have decided to maintain the recommended FC levels based on the Chlorine/CYA chart (5 - 7 ppm based on my current CYA readings) and not trust the Nature 2 mineral sanitizer with lower levels of chlorine to sanitize my hot tub. Last night i added enough bleach to raise my FC levels to 5 ppm. based on the pool calculator.
My questions are as follows:
1. Am I on the right track with my chemistry?
2. Should I be concerned that my CYA level of 60 is much higher than the recommended 20 - 30 levels? Is this reason enough to drain my spa and start over or am I fine with just using bleach to keep my FC levels at 5 - 7 ppm? I plan on draining the spa every 4 months which would put the next scheduled draining in late November.
3. Should I ditch the Nature 2 mineral sanitizer? I have 3 more of the cartridges and planned on putting a new one in every time I drain the spa. Is there any downside to using them and maintaining Chlorine/CYA chart recommended FC levels?
4. Why would my FC levels go from 5 to 1.5 overnight when I have a CC level of less than .5? There were no bathers in the spa last night. This seems very mysterious to me.
Thank you for your help.