Hi everyone. Here's my first post! I'm glad I found this community.
I searched the forums and could not find a topic related to this issue.
We just installed a brand new 450 gallon Artesian (Island Spas) spa. The place we bought it from provided a suite of Leisure Time chemicals including SPA 56 chlorine.
It has a Del Ozone plasma gap ozone generator and I am having trouble finding out what chlorine level to run. The people at the spa dealer said that the ozone causes the chlorine level to read low, but I did some research and learned that the ozone destroys the chlorine, which my testing results prove to be true. With a clean city water fill (FCL of 1.04), I can add enough chlorine 56 to bring it up to more than 3 ppm and one day later it's at less than 0.5 without using the spa at all. The filter and ozone default to running 24/7. Water is crystal clear.
So my question is what chlorine level should I be running? Should I follow the normal spa recommendation for a level of 3-5? If so, I would need to be adding chlorine every day, but I would rather err on the chlorine level being too high than too low. I had issues with cloudy water and foam at first and ending up changing the water twice in less than a month. I use a ColorQ test kit to get my results because I am colorblind and the test strips and 5-way test kits are impossible for me to read.
City water test results
FCL 1.04
TCL 1.18
PH 7.1
ALK 150
CH 227
Just after filling and adding 0.45 oz by weight of the chlorine (maybe a bit too much), here are my test results:
FCL 6.15
TCL 9.12
PH 7.2
ALK 138
CH 255
After 24 hours without using the spa these were the results:
FCL .20
TCL .40
PH 8.0
ALK 147
CH 223
I am working to get rising PH and ALK levels down, which is also proving a challenge. On a daily basis I can add enough dry acid (about 2.5 oz by weight) to lower the PH to 7.0 (per the pool calculator), and it's back to 8.0 in a few hours. The alkalinity will drop by less than 10 points after each treatment. Is this normal? The amount of water testing I need to do (several times per day) is making me feel more and more like a chemist.
Thank you!
I searched the forums and could not find a topic related to this issue.
We just installed a brand new 450 gallon Artesian (Island Spas) spa. The place we bought it from provided a suite of Leisure Time chemicals including SPA 56 chlorine.
It has a Del Ozone plasma gap ozone generator and I am having trouble finding out what chlorine level to run. The people at the spa dealer said that the ozone causes the chlorine level to read low, but I did some research and learned that the ozone destroys the chlorine, which my testing results prove to be true. With a clean city water fill (FCL of 1.04), I can add enough chlorine 56 to bring it up to more than 3 ppm and one day later it's at less than 0.5 without using the spa at all. The filter and ozone default to running 24/7. Water is crystal clear.
So my question is what chlorine level should I be running? Should I follow the normal spa recommendation for a level of 3-5? If so, I would need to be adding chlorine every day, but I would rather err on the chlorine level being too high than too low. I had issues with cloudy water and foam at first and ending up changing the water twice in less than a month. I use a ColorQ test kit to get my results because I am colorblind and the test strips and 5-way test kits are impossible for me to read.
City water test results
FCL 1.04
TCL 1.18
PH 7.1
ALK 150
CH 227
Just after filling and adding 0.45 oz by weight of the chlorine (maybe a bit too much), here are my test results:
FCL 6.15
TCL 9.12
PH 7.2
ALK 138
CH 255
After 24 hours without using the spa these were the results:
FCL .20
TCL .40
PH 8.0
ALK 147
CH 223
I am working to get rising PH and ALK levels down, which is also proving a challenge. On a daily basis I can add enough dry acid (about 2.5 oz by weight) to lower the PH to 7.0 (per the pool calculator), and it's back to 8.0 in a few hours. The alkalinity will drop by less than 10 points after each treatment. Is this normal? The amount of water testing I need to do (several times per day) is making me feel more and more like a chemist.
Thank you!