New to hot tubs high ph question low TA

[redalert001]

The gentle spa is a mix of
Tetraborate Pentahydrate (20/30%) & boric acid (70-80%)
It is mostly boric acid.
They are both listed as chemicals in poolmath
View attachment 615111
Since its a mix Just use the directions on the bottle and call it good until the next fill. You can attempt to do the math but 4oz per 150 gallons should yield you about 30 ppm borates. Those are the instructions on the website

Gentle Spa - ProTeam

This one time use product will make your skin feel soft while reducing eye and skin irritation. Need more reasons why this will transform your soak experience? Keep reading!

proteampoolcare.com

You have a floating weir- for it to function as designed water should be just over it. With The recommended water level in my tub there’s about 1/2 inch of water over mine.

How to Add Borates Using Boric Acid​

Calculate, using PoolMath, how much Boric acid you will need for 50 ppm.

Does PoolMath calculate how much Boric acid to add?

I am leaning towards buying the Duda Diesel as I will need it anyway. Plus, I have an ozonator and the ph rises faster due to the additional aeration and I rather not add anything to the spa that is going to even slightly raise ph. I know I sound paranoid but it took me half a day to get ph down upon filling up the spa.

 

[Mdragger88]

How to Add Borates Using Boric Acid​

Calculate, using PoolMath, how much Boric acid you will need for 50 ppm.

Does PoolMath calculate how much Boric acid to add?

I am leaning towards buying the Duda Diesel as I will need it anyway. Plus, I have an ozonator and the ph rises faster due to the additional aeration and I rather not add anything to the spa that is going to even slightly raise ph. I know I sound paranoid but it took me half a day to get ph down upon filling up the spa.

Yes boric acid is listed as a chemical in poolmath.

Ph will continuously rise in a spa - nothing is going to completely stop that freight train.
The slight initial increase due to the gentle spa can simply be offset with acid afterwards.
I really don’t like combo products too much so I just use boric acid.
It’s also cheaper but with the small amount needed for a spa the cost difference is negligible.
Up to you - either will work

 

[redalert001]

Yes boric acid is listed as a chemical in poolmath.

Ph will continuously rise in a spa - nothing is going to completely stop that freight train.
The slight initial increase due to the gentle spa can simply be offset with acid afterwards.
I really don’t like combo products too much so I just use boric acid.
It’s also cheaper but with the small amount needed for a spa the cost difference is negligible.
Up to you - either will work

I ordered 5lbs of granular boric acid yesterday from duda diesel. I am not a fan either of any combo products like yourself after the dry acid on my first initial fill talk about a nightmare!

Yes, I can totally see boric acid is listed as a chemical in poolmath.

But that is not my question.

To clarify how do I calculate how much boric acid to add to my 275 gallon spa?

I would think it would be in the ph section of pool math but I cannot find a calculation for boric acid in pool math app anywhere.

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[PoolStored]

To clarify how do I calculate how much boric acid to add to my 275 gallon spa?

Use "effects of adding" function. Choose Boric Acid.

 

[redalert001]

Use "effects of adding" function. Choose Boric Acid.

Thank you so much! Sorry I didn’t see it hiding there. I am new to the app.

 

[redalert001]

Use "effects of adding" function. Choose Boric Acid.

Can you put 10.5 oz of boric acid into the spa at once or should you do break that 10.5oz into smaller doses?

 

[PoolStored]

Just pour while walking around the spa. Brush a bit to ensure that it dissolves. It dissolves pretty quickly.

 

[ajw22]

I did some further reading , Borate in pool - further reading, and now I’m wondering if I should ditch the Pro team gentle spa and buy some DudaDiesel as I didn’t know there was another choice until I read, borate in pool - further reading article.

If I should proceed with Pro team gentle spa should I add 8.25 oz or 6oz like the bottle states?

Use the Pro Team you have.

The link is broken to the pool math app in the “Borate in pool - further reading” article.

I fixed that.

PoolMath

www.troublefreepool.com

Also, in the pool math app I do not see any section for borates therefore I am just confused on how much to put in. I only see borates under add chemical in the app but that doesn’t tell me how much to add just to keep a track record of it.

Use Effect of Adding in PoolMath and you will find various borate chemicals.

 

[redalert001]

Spa & Hot Tub Maintenance A Basic Guide

Hot Tub Maintenance can be done easy with a few tricks. Hot tub chemicals, rashes, and schedules are all covered in this easy to grasp article.

www.troublefreepool.com

Hi again I am testing CYA for the first time as I have put in 34 ppm dichlor as instructed. When testing CYA in the CYA view tube I can still see the black dot when filled up all the way up the tube to the 30 mark.

Should I add more dichlor to bring CYA up to 30? Or just leave it and switch to chlorine now.

I attached pictures of the CYA view tube.

I will say I put 33ppm dichlor in. Then I was confused how to exactly put only 1ppm dichlor in order to get to the 34ppm dichlor total. So I put in 0.06628055232186801 Dichlor. Maybe I did not put in enough Dichlor?

The water is also cloudy for the first time as I put in 18 tennis balls as I read on here it was good to do after a soak I left them in for about a day as I forgot about them unfortunately. Ever since the addition of the tennis balls though the water is cloudy. I took the tennis balls out and immediately regretted buying them.

Just wondering if I should add more Dichlor or switch to bleach. Thank you!

 

[Mdragger88]

Cya around 30/40 ppm is sufficient - it doesn’t have to be exact.
Add enough for cya to be readable on the test then proceed with liquid chlorine.
Remove the tennis balls & clean the filter. Perhaps they have deteriorated some.
From your logs it seems you have allowed fc to fall too low. Raise fc to slam level for your cya until it clears up and cc’s are 0.5 ppm or less.
FC/CYA Levels
May take a few rounds to get it cleared up.

 

[redalert001]

Cya around 30/40 ppm is sufficient - it doesn’t have to be exact.
Add enough for cya to be readable on the test then proceed with liquid chlorine.
Remove the tennis balls & clean the filter. Perhaps they have deteriorated some.
From your logs it seems you have allowed fc to fall too low. Raise fc to slam level for your cya until it clears up and cc’s are 0.5 ppm or less.
FC/CYA Levels
May take a few rounds to get it cleared up.

Thanks.

You are correct the tennis balls deteriorated. There was a green line where the water line was on the spa. My spouse plays tennis and they wanted the water dumped as they were not comfortable with all the chemicals they put on tennis balls now in the spa and I agreed. After dumping the water we found the green scum line and we were glad we decided to purge the spa. Did a treatment of ahh some and cleaned the filter and refilled drained then filled it back up.

Tennis balls are now being thrown away.

I also bought a spa depot thermo float as I read it protects the cover from the ozonator. Now wondering if I should get rid of that as well. Although it does seem to keep the water a little bit hotter and we definitely need a new cover so I’m on the fence about it right now.

Thanks for the advice about the CYA.

 

[Mdragger88]

Thanks.

You are correct the tennis balls deteriorated. There was a green line where the water line was on the spa. My spouse plays tennis and they wanted the water dumped as they were not comfortable with all the chemicals they put on tennis balls now in the spa and I agreed. After dumping the water we found the green scum line and we were glad we decided to purge the spa. Did a treatment of ahh some and cleaned the filter and refilled drained then filled it back up.

Tennis balls are now being thrown away.

I also bought a spa depot thermo float as I read it protects the cover from the ozonator. Now wondering if I should get rid of that as well. Although it does seem to keep the water a little bit hotter and we definitely need a new cover so I’m on the fence about it right now.

Thanks for the advice about the CYA.

For the body oils I use the rollachem brand scumbug. I have tried other balls/shapes etc that were supposed to be the same material and they deteriorated quickly.
The scum bug lasts me over a year. I just float it while we’re in there and the rest of the time it sits in the cup holder.
It floats around and then I squeeze it over the side out of the tub and rinse it a few times. We also use it to squeeze water over our feet before getting in.
Ahhsome has a ray i believe but I haven’t tried it yet. My last scumbug is still going strong lol. Once it dies /gets ragged looking it goes in the pool skimmer at parties.
The floating cover will eventually deteriorate - thats just how it goes. Once it starts showing signs replace it if you found it helpful.
The ozone can eventually be detrimental if it never has anything to work on/oxidize. Best for a regularly used tub so it mostly stays busy oxidizing waste which can be helpful. Its kind of a double edged sword.
If you get to where you go long stents without use you may want to disable it. Some simply choose not to replace them when they stop working.
The best thing you can do for your cover aside from proper chemistry is to let it air out/ leave it off on a regular basis even if you don’t use the tub that week.
Also leave it off for 15/20 minutes or so after adding chems and exiting the tub.
& rinse it with fresh water periodically as weather permits.

 

[redalert001]

T

For the body oils I use the rollachem brand scumbug. I have tried other balls/shapes etc that were supposed to be the same material and they deteriorated quickly.
The scum bug lasts me over a year. I just float it while we’re in there and the rest of the time it sits in the cup holder.
It floats around and then I squeeze it over the side out of the tub and rinse it a few times. We also use it to squeeze water over our feet before getting in.
Ahhsome has a ray i believe but I haven’t tried it yet. My last scumbug is still going strong lol. Once it dies /gets ragged looking it goes in the pool skimmer at parties.
The floating cover will eventually deteriorate - thats just how it goes. Once it starts showing signs replace it if you found it helpful.
The ozone can eventually be detrimental if it never has anything to work on/oxidize. Best for a regularly used tub so it mostly stays busy oxidizing waste which can be helpful. Its kind of a double edged sword.
If you get to where you go long stents without use you may want to disable it. Some simply choose not to replace them when they stop working.
The best thing you can do for your cover aside from proper chemistry is to let it air out/ leave it off on a regular basis even if you don’t use the tub that week.
Also leave it off for 15/20 minutes or so after adding chems and exiting the tub.
& rinse it with fresh water periodically as weather permits.

Thanks that’s helpful about the cover information. Although we are going into winter here the high today was 46 degrees so probably have to keep the main cover on most the time.

I wish I found this forum before I put in the ozonator but it’s just a backup sanitizer now got to justify the $300 spent on it as I thought about disconnecting it but I’m just going to use it and see how it goes.

I’ll also see through winter if the spa float is worth it. It might be more annoying but time will tell.

I will look into the scumbug you suggested. I was only using the tennis balls to clean the sides of the spa though. I was not worried about lotions as we don’t use any. The spa looks pretty good when we use it.

Thanks for all your help and advice I really appreciate it.