Teeny Tiney Bubbles

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JoyfulNoise said:
was plumbed by an 8 years old with ADHD hopped up on Mountain Dew and NoDoze…
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Hey, it was better than mowing lawns! Give a kid a break!😉🤣

elbow said:
was wondering if it was from the Aqua Clarity
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I've seen it in too many tubs to count in the last 27 years, while aqua-clarity is still a baby. I can't discount it being a variable in the equation, but can assure you it happens without it.
 
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Mine did it before I was an aqua clarity user. I will say that I have always used some amount of borates so maybe a connection 🤔
 
Mdragger88 said:
will say that I have always used some amount of borates so maybe a connection 🤔
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In StL borates were not big, but when I hit Boulder everybody used it. I didn't like it, it being an unknown variable to me, but the local guys swore by it. I don't buy it for my tubs, and have had this issue myself, so again can't rule it out but guarantee it can happen without it.
In my head (which is kind of a scary place anyway) it's chemical, as I associate it with a tingle in the nasal passages. Not helpful in chemistry perhaps, but that's what I've got.
I dump and refill to fix it. Works every time.
 
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Salt, (sodium chloride) increases the surface tension of water. Aqua Clarity reduces surface tension in water as molecules in the cleaner work to break up the molecules in water. Aqua Clarity is a surface cleaning agent with additional properties that scour and clean as well as clarify. Mdragger88 has been using AC in her hot tub on a regular weekly basis. She is actually using slightly less per week than what is customary. It will be very interesting to get her comments regarding her upcoming purge. Her tub seems to be used regularly and with the smaller gallonage you would assume that there would be a good amount of bio-gunk released from the purge. I surmise that there will be far less released gunk since she is using the Aqua Clarity. Perhaps she will post her observations.
 
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I must make a confession 🫣
Looking back at my logs 🗒️……
My last purge was a year ago- March 2023- there was no detritus.
The previous purge was 9 months prior- no detritus.
I started using Aqua Clarity in August 2021.
All of my purges since have been clean as a whistle. Generally I go 6 months between.
This year has been a roller coaster of traveling for me so my tub hasn’t seen as much use as normal.
Even pushing a year now I haven’t noticed anything being off. No smells, no cc’s, clarity is great.
That said, I do have a small tub (200 gal) so it suffers from quite a bit of splashout. Water carried out in bathing suits. Especially if my hubby or son uses the tub as they wear trunks. 🩳
I believe when I add water its usually about 20 gallons or so (so 10% of my volume). Some of the water loss is also evaporation so its not exactly a 10% exchange or I would eventually have no salt which has not been the case. My swcg is still quite happy although it does have a large acceptable salinity range.
This topping off occurs every couple weeks so that probably helps dilute my tds a bit.
*I also have a swcg feeding my tub fc all the time on top of my manual dosing with use so there are Zero periods when my fc falls below minimum for my cya.
I really don’t recommend waiting a year to purge/drain/refill even with the best sanitation but sometimes life gets in the way. It’s nice to know that my swcg & Aqua clarity have my back if I fall off schedule.
*I will be completing this task during spring break next week.
I will update if anything funky happens 🥴
 
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Mdragger88 said:
… so it suffers from quite a bit of splashout. Water carried out in bathing suits. Especially if my hubby or son uses the tub as they wear trunks. 🩳
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Easy fix … they’re only allowed to wear speedos in the tub … should help with the water loss … warn the neighbors though just to be polite 😂

Big Brother Speedo GIF by Big Brother Australia
 
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What happens in the backyard stays in the backyard! 🤣😂🤣
We really don’t have neighbors in eye view but I have been startled by the meter reader while tubbing more than once!
The meter is next to my patio and tub.
Sadly, due to the introduction of the smart meters, he no longer visits or has that job - it was eliminated ☹️
The delivery people see me in the pool all the time - we don’t have a fence. Not sure if they appreciate it or not lol 😂
 
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Mdragger88 said:
What happens in the backyard stays in the backyard! 🤣😂🤣
We really don’t have neighbors in eye view but I have been startled by the meter reader while tubbing more than once!
The meter is next to my patio and tub.
Sadly, due to the introduction of the smart meters, he no longer visits or has that job - it was eliminated ☹️
The delivery people see me in the pool all the time - we don’t have a fence. Not sure if they appreciate it or not lol 😂
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No skinny dippin’ on Amazon Delivery Days!! (Good thing you can schedule those…)
 
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That's a fascinating video, and on-topic as it shows in extreme slow motion an effect that highly resembles the one under discussion. I had hoped that some of you might watch and have an opinion on it, but it somehow turned the thread into an aqua-clarity ad followed by a humorous discussion on old farts skinny-dipping.
So, if surface tension is a factor, and salt increases surface tension, this should happen in every salt tub out there, but I have not had that impression. So we can assume it's not salt alone, though it may be a factor. C'mon sciencey folks, what else?
 
RDspaguy said:
So, if surface tension is a factor, and salt increases surface tension, this should happen in every salt tub out there, but I have not had that impression. So we can assume it's not salt alone, though it may be a factor. C'mon sciencey folks, what else?
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Surface tension is a factor but it’s LOWER surface tension that causes foaming, not higher. The higher the surface tension of water the more energy is need to created a bubble.

As for chemistry … I think everyone knows by now that what’s sitting in your hot tub is NOT water but a stew of water plus human detritus and anything that is leftover from the previously drain tub of water. Proteins and fats (oils) can act as bubble forming (foam forming) agents. The human body sheds an enormous amount of proteins and oils when submerged into water not including all of the chemicals applied to skin and hair. Anyone urinating in their tub will also release proteins, sugars, and other chemical compounds into the water. Sanitizers can only go so far in oxidizing some of these compounds and filtration does not remove them as they are dissolved into the water and not suspended solids.

So there’s any number of reasons why these bubbles form. Pinpointing the exact cause would be an exercise in futility.
 
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JoyfulNoise said:
Surface tension is a factor but it’s LOWER surface tension that causes foaming, not higher. The higher the surface tension of water the more energy is need to created a bubble.
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But this isn't foaming, it's fizzing. There is no foam, but the water does cloud with the injected air and it fizzes at the surface.
As I said previously, if you've never seen it you'll have no idea what we're talking about, but it happens. And it resembles the tiny little droplet that goes flying into the air at the end of this slow-motion sequence, only there's a million of them.
I don't have a clue, but I've wondered myself and this is the second thread I've seen on it and watched it dismissed as something it's not. I've seen quite a few spas in my time, and I tell you this is rare. The fix is fresh water, so maybe it is futile to try to figure it out, but that's never stopped me before.😉
 
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What you are describing sounds an awful like cavitation caused by rapid and intense changes in the momentum of the water such that voids form. Those voids then fill with gases that are dissolved in the water because the tiny voids are essentially a vacuum and any gas dissolved in the surrounding water will immediately diffuse into the void. You can find any number of videos that demonstrate this phenomenon. Hot tub pumps are typically very high horsepower pumps and the plumbing is typically small diameter. The smaller the diameter of the pipe, the lower the allowable maximum water velocity. For typical pool plumbing (2” pipe), you need to keep the water velocity below 6 ft/sec or so to avoid turbulent flow and cavitation at edges and elbows. Given the plumbing jobs I’ve seen done on hot tubs (like teenagers with ADHD hopped up on NoDoze) and the size of the pumps used, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there is cavitation at all the various bends and sharp corners. That could be one possible explanation of the champagne bubble effect you are seeing. Why fresh/used water would make a difference is hard to say other than perhaps the slightly higher density and viscosity of used tub water maybe makes a difference 🤷‍♂️
 
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