Brown flakes in hot tub

[RDspaguy]

Some heaters have a built-in high-limit switch that must be manually reset. I have seen aftermarket replacement heaters for D1 that have one on the heater box that ends up against the control box and inaccessible without removing the heater.
A bad heater will usually trip the breaker, but not always.
Test voltage to the heater from the circuit board to verify it is not a board issue before removing heater.

 

[aguywithaspa]

So I had a guy come fix the hot tub, and it turns out I wasn't getting any heat because I left all the jet covers off (wanted to leave it that way til I was sure it was all cleaned out inside). Apparently the heater is triggered to turn on by the backpressure from the jets, so with them all open, the lack of pressure didn't turn on the heating. Which isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual. Great waste of $250. The hot tub is fine.

Didn't order a real pool test kit yet, because I wanted to make sure it was running and nothing needed replacing first. For now, my cheap strips show everything in the normal ranges, with alkalinity/ph on the high end of OK.

I've only seen a few residual bits of brown gunk, but only had a chance to use it once since heating up. We'll see how it holds up.

You guys mentioned the dichlor sanitizer portion builds up over time, but if you're not using the tub a ton and you're draining the water every so often, does it really get to levels where you can't maintain the water easily?
I also found a bottle full of like 99% dichlor, which must have come with the tub. I guess I could use a much smaller portion of this rather than capfuls of the Replenish stuff, which should last for years if that's all I really need.

 

[newdude]

You guys mentioned the dichlor sanitizer portion builds up over time, but if you're not using the tub a ton and you're draining the water every so often, does it really get to levels where you can't maintain the water easily?

Here's the deal. Order your big boy test kit, and you tell me.

Without frequent use and the subsequent sanitizing needed (your hot tub makes people soup), the water may stay manageable long enough that you don't mind draining to start over. Or with regular testing, you see the CYA rising and you switch dosing methods at 60, before it gets away from you. Or at 80, you half drain back to 40. The test kit opens all kinds of doors for you.

Check out the FC/CYA Levels. Follow it and adjust your FC to match the corresponding CYA level. Bring the tub to SLAM level after use, check the next morning to make sure you are still above min, then maintain target range or higher until the next soak. Dose to half or 3/4 SLAM before you get in to get a jump start on all the sanitizing it's about to need.

 

[Methuselah]

Didn't order a real pool test kit yet, because I wanted to make sure it was running and nothing needed replacing first. For now, my cheap strips show everything in the normal ranges, with alkalinity/ph on the high end of OK.

...dichlor...

Cost to Refill Tub

Moved from here. My first post - great, no intro but I'm reading through (lurking) seeing many times folks say dump the water it's cheap. I do hate to appear like I'm sharpshooting, heckling, trolling, being arbitrary, nitpicky, or just plain trying to start something - however, that said...

www.troublefreepool.com

Is weekly shock needed?

As per the spa sticky thread: "Never let FC drop to Zero for any length of time. Keep it between 3-6 ppm normally, min of 1 ppm, and shock to 12 ppm once a week." If my CC is 0.5 or less, do I need to shock once a week? thanks!

www.troublefreepool.com

Yes, I suppose you could just dose regularly with the dichlor and dump every month or two. Maybe even get by with pen and paper without testing if you accurately weigh the dichlor. It's probably doable.

NOT recommended, but it works right up to the point someone gets hot tub rash or the water turns a pretty shade of green.

Your best bet on enjoying you hot tub is monitoring with a decent test kit, keeping chlorine level above the minimum requirement at all times, and you can't accomplish that with test strips. They're not reliable.

 

[Mdragger88]

So I had a guy come fix the hot tub, and it turns out I wasn't getting any heat because I left all the jet covers off (wanted to leave it that way til I was sure it was all cleaned out inside). Apparently the heater is triggered to turn on by the backpressure from the jets, so with them all open, the lack of pressure didn't turn on the heating. Which isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual. Great waste of $250. The hot tub is fine.

Didn't order a real pool test kit yet, because I wanted to make sure it was running and nothing needed replacing first. For now, my cheap strips show everything in the normal ranges, with alkalinity/ph on the high end of OK.

I've only seen a few residual bits of brown gunk, but only had a chance to use it once since heating up. We'll see how it holds up.

You guys mentioned the dichlor sanitizer portion builds up over time, but if you're not using the tub a ton and you're draining the water every so often, does it really get to levels where you can't maintain the water easily?
I also found a bottle full of like 99% dichlor, which must have come with the tub. I guess I could use a much smaller portion of this rather than capfuls of the Replenish stuff, which should last for years if that's all I really need.

Here’s what every 1/2 oz of dichlor does to your tub

You can see how the cya would reach the recommended 30-40ppm pretty quickly if that is your sole source of chlorination.
After reaching about 50 ppm cya it gets a bit tricky to maintain because the required fc levels are higher (especially slam/shock level) making testing ph more difficult as the ph results are inaccurate at fc levels higher than 10ppm.
You must dose fc high enough to ensure you never fall below minimum for your cya levels at any given time or nasties will proliferate rapidly.
FC/CYA Levels
Including accounting for standby fc consumption.
this requires accurately testing fc & cc before & after soaks until you better understand how quickly fc is depleted in your tub based on the bather load you introduce. Strip’s simply don’t cut it.

 

[agswimming541]

Hello,
I have a Dimension One Dream model hot tub with a UV lamp and Vision silver ion cartridge for sanitizing. We use leisure time chlorine shock as required as well. A couple years ago the UV lamp failed, which took a while to notice because we don’t always use it regularly. At some point brown flakes started floating around.

No matter what I do I can’t seem to get rid of them. We got a new a UV lamp (the original one was 6+yrs old). Drained the water, new filter and silver cartridge. More flakes. Ran some Natural Chemistry Spa Purge. Didn’t seem to help much or at all.

I’m guessing it’s some kind of slime buildup inside the pipes, but I’m not sure what I can use to get rid of it. No matter how much skimming I do it never really goes away.

Are there different types of purge chemicals that more specifically or aggressively target this type of stuff?

I have attached a couple pics of a chunk in my skimmer, and a pile of them at the bottom when I just recently drained it again. Any suggestions on what might get rid of this stuff for good would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Yikees

 

[aguywithaspa]

Ok, so I finally got a TF Pro kit. I just did all the tests.

To begin with, I've been throwing in a cap full of the 15% dichlor about once a week and after use per normal (only used like once or twice since refilling last, and last use was about two weeks ago). I haven't put a cap in in about a week, and the silver ion cartrige at this point is like 9 months old and needs replacing. The water has started to not be crystal clear anymore.

Chlorine and PH comparing block:
CL is clear so 0, I don't know what CL this is measuring. FC? CC? Both of those are measured with the other drop test, right? Is this something else?
pH is 8.2+

Chlorine drop test-
FC- 0
I added the DPD powder and it didn't change from clear. As such, I didn't add the R-0871 drops to get BACK to clear from pink. I then added the R-0003, which remained clear.
CC- 0

TA- 150 (dimension one recommends 120-180 here) Water Care | Dimension One Spas
CH- 100
CYA- 0

Clearly my pH is too high. I have Leisure Time "Spa Down" 95% sodium bisulphate. I'll try adding that to get back to normal range. I see that most things that lower pH also lower TA, which is in a good range, but the more important thing is to get pH in the right range, even if TA ends up being a bit out of range?

What seems odd is my CYA is zero. From what some of you posted before, it seemed like CYA would be relatively high relatively fast from the dichlor. Does the UV lamp plow through the CYA as well as the FC aspect of the dichlor, keeping both levels relatively low?

Either way, I guess I need to add dichlor to get CYA to a reasonable range as well as bump up the FC. It looks like dichlor also lowers pH a bit, too.

 

[newdude]

It looks like dichlor also lowers pH a bit, too.

CYA is Cyanuric *Acid* and acid lowers Ph.

Does the UV lamp plow through the CYA

Not from anything I've ever read, but I must admit I haven't read gobs and gobs here about UV. The heat on the other hand does chew through CYA.

 

[Ahhsomeguy]

it would seem doubtful that you would have that much detritus gunk to clog your suction inlets or heater manifold. If you run the jets are you getting good flow rates?

 

[aguywithaspa]

it would seem doubtful that you would have that much detritus gunk to clog your suction inlets or heater manifold. If you run the jets are you getting good flow rates?

The gunk was all built up in the cavities behind the jets. So far, after taking those off and finally getting everything out, it has been fairly gunk-free. Just trying to get the water levels right now. But yes, even before I was still getting normal flow rates.

 

[Mdragger88]

To confirm, the cya tube never got cloudy?
Also- any ta 50 or above is fine, just worry about keeping your ph in check.

 

[markayash]

The gunk was all built up in the cavities behind the jets. So far, after taking those off and finally getting everything out, it has been fairly gunk-free. Just trying to get the water levels right now. But yes, even before I was still getting normal flow rates.

I have a jetted Tub and have back pain so do epson salt soaks..Started noticing a few flakes and short story was once that Crud broke lose it almost made me sick think I had been sitting it.
In mine I would run it with the ahhsome and would turn it on and off a few times back and back and more junk would come out.
Glad your getting your cleaned up

 

[aguywithaspa]

To confirm, the cya tube never got cloudy?
Also- any ta 50 or above is fine, just worry about keeping your ph in check.

Yea, the cya was crystal clear. I threw in about 2.5 caps of dichlor, and CL is now in the 3-5 range. I've added a few rounds of Spa Down trying to eyeball some teaspoon-ish sized doses (not sure exactly how much is needed on a per gallon range per .1 pH, so I'm trying not to overdo it too quickly), but still showing over 8.2. I'll check again tomorrow and probably add more. I think the water does seem a bit more clear, but maybe that's just from looking at it all day.

 

[Methuselah]

So, 6 years, silver ion, dichlor (15%), with "concoction" only a chemist could figure out, UV, Ozone on a 24 hr. circulation pump, presumably covered, what, 12 bather-hours a year?

Dosing weekly probably pushed CYA up, but this looks like a success story except for the flakes.

Yes, "we" do it differently here, probably cheaper too, but except for those running a SWG, I doubt all of us are as successful as you seem to be.

What we do and offer(ed) is more hands-on, and less likely to put brown flakes in your tub. It's easier to gage (ozone and UV can fail, but you READ CHL and CYA).

I reckon the only thing I'm sure of is your health is the biggest consideration. I think you mentioned ph was high? Testing is an assurance, water balance also. I suspect you had sanitation down pat (at least until the UV failure).

This one makes me feel uneasy pushing our flavor of coolade. @RDspaguy has hinted more than a few times a tub can be successfully run like yours, maybe this is an example, even though a year is a very long time to keep the water...

 

[RDspaguy]

This one makes me feel uneasy pushing our flavor of coolade.

Bottom line is, as my dad used to say, "there's more than one way to skin a cat". Still not sure why he was skinning cats, but you get the idea. Safe water is the destination, and there are quite a few roads that lead there. Each has good and bad points, so pick the one you like and use it. Chlorine has been used successfully for centuries, and there is no problem with using it if you have no problem with using it. I never said the tfp method doesn't work, I just said there are other ways that work too.

 

[Mdragger88]

Yea, the cya was crystal clear. I threw in about 2.5 caps of dichlor, and CL is now in the 3-5 range. I've added a few rounds of Spa Down trying to eyeball some teaspoon-ish sized doses (not sure exactly how much is needed on a per gallon range per .1 pH, so I'm trying not to overdo it too quickly), but still showing over 8.2. I'll check again tomorrow and probably add more. I think the water does seem a bit more clear, but maybe that's just from looking at it all day.

Use
PoolMath to find how many oz you need
Then convert from oz to tsp/tbsp

https://www.google.com/search?q=oz+to+tbsp&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

A little more or less is fine in a big pool but can really throw things off in a small spa.
We have no clue how much a capful is since it’s not a standard size

 

[markayash]

Bottom line is, as my dad used to say, "there's more than one way to skin a cat". Still not sure why he was skinning cats, but you get the idea. Safe water is the destination, and there are quite a few roads that lead there. Each has good and bad points, so pick the one you like and use it. Chlorine has been used successfully for centuries, and there is no problem with using it if you have no problem with using it. I never said the tfp method doesn't work, I just said there are other ways that work too.

I am a network engineer and I learned never say “ it’s not the network” when 99% it’s not. Years ago I insisted and short version is I was wrong.
Although i strongly believe the TFP method works and is the best there are a lot of people doing it different.
And pool store are still there to take their money

 

[aguywithaspa]

So, 6 years, silver ion, dichlor (15%), with "concoction" only a chemist could figure out, UV, Ozone on a 24 hr. circulation pump, presumably covered, what, 12 bather-hours a year?

Dosing weekly probably pushed CYA up, but this looks like a success story except for the flakes.

Yes, "we" do it differently here, probably cheaper too, but except for those running a SWG, I doubt all of us are as successful as you seem to be.

What we do and offer(ed) is more hands-on, and less likely to put brown flakes in your tub. It's easier to gage (ozone and UV can fail, but you READ CHL and CYA).

I reckon the only thing I'm sure of is your health is the biggest consideration. I think you mentioned ph was high? Testing is an assurance, water balance also. I suspect you had sanitation down pat (at least until the UV failure).

This one makes me feel uneasy pushing our flavor of coolade. @RDspaguy has hinted more than a few times a tub can be successfully run like yours, maybe this is an example, even though a year is a very long time to keep the water...

Yea, everything was good before the lamp died.

I'm guessing once the UV died, I probably got in the habit of putting in the dichlor even less frequently, since I kinda knew it didn't matter anyway until the lamp got fixed (hadn't looked in to any other way to sanitize then). Then after it did get fixed, we hadn't been using it as regularly since we had a couple kids in short succession, and I kept that bad habit of not enough dichlor even to maintain. Not enough CYA is probably what has allowed the pH to go up and may be what has been giving me problems since then, gunkiness aside since that seems resolved.

I did some more measurements today.
FC- 3.5
CC- 1.5
CYA- a little cloudy, but I could still fill the whole tube and see the dot, so fairly low.
pH- still 8.2+

I added 1.5 more teaspoons of dry acid, which I haven't figured out the exact conversion for. But is probably a little less than .6 oz (which should reduce pH 0.3 according to the app)

 

[Mdragger88]

Yea, everything was good before the lamp died.

I'm guessing once the UV died, I probably got in the habit of putting in the dichlor even less frequently, since I kinda knew it didn't matter anyway until the lamp got fixed (hadn't looked in to any other way to sanitize then). Then after it did get fixed, we hadn't been using it as regularly since we had a couple kids in short succession, and I kept that bad habit of not enough dichlor even to maintain. Not enough CYA is probably what has allowed the pH to go up and may be what has been giving me problems since then, gunkiness aside since that seems resolved.

I did some more measurements today.
FC- 3.5
CC- 1.5
CYA- a little cloudy, but I could still fill the whole tube and see the dot, so fairly low.
pH- still 8.2+

I added 1.5 more teaspoons of dry acid, which I haven't figured out the exact conversion for. But is probably a little less than .6 oz (which should reduce pH 0.3 according to the app)

The 1.5 cc is concerning - raise to slam level
FC/CYA Levels
& see if it goes away since you have purged recently. You may need to do this more than once. Use poolmath effects of adding to see dichlor’s effects on the ph to prevent lowering it too much. If subsequent slam fc rounds are needed you may need to use liquid chlorine instead.

 

[Methuselah]

Yea, everything was good before the lamp died.

I'm guessing once the UV died, I probably got in the habit of putting in the dichlor even less frequently, since I kinda knew it didn't matter anyway until the lamp got fixed (hadn't looked in to any other way to sanitize then). Then after it did get fixed, we hadn't been using it as regularly since we had a couple kids in short succession, and I kept that bad habit of not enough dichlor even to maintain. Not enough CYA is probably what has allowed the pH to go up and may be what has been giving me problems since then, gunkiness aside since that seems resolved.

I did some more measurements today.
FC- 3.5
CC- 1.5
CYA- a little cloudy, but I could still fill the whole tube and see the dot, so fairly low.
pH- still 8.2+

I added 1.5 more teaspoons of dry acid, which I haven't figured out the exact conversion for. But is probably a little less than .6 oz (which should reduce pH 0.3 according to the app)

With CC that high, unless it's a false reading from "additives", if you didn't have a problem you do now.

Muriatic acid works better than dry acid btw. Have you read the sticky?

You gave me the impression the tub gets very little usage, is this last post contradictory? Usage REQUIRES enough sanitation to overcome waste products. In theory, with zero CC, silver ion, ozone, and UV would keep it that way with almost zero residual CHL.

Have you read the sticky?

It's good you got the test kit. Since it's purged, hopefully all you need do is take care of that CC situation and get ph in a good range. Have you read the sticky?