Hi from Tasmania

[Brekel]

Hi!

New to the forum from Hobart, Tasmania.
I've been reading a bit on here for the last week, as I've just bought a new home with an outdoor swim-spa.

I love the way there seems to be regular contributors on here who have a good chemical knowledge to back up what they are saying, rather than just the usual "I did this and it worked so it must be right" that you find on a lot of forums.

You'll probably see a few questions popping up from me as I'm new to pools, but I have been doing my research

 

[cowboycasey]

Welcome to TFP

Those type pool/spa's are every popular down there, we just helped another person there change over

 

[needsajet]

Hey Tassie, same reasons I joined and you said it well! Welcome to TFP

 

[kimkats]

You are going to love it here at TFP.............our advice is science based as well as daily tested in THOUSANDS of pools each day.

Kim:cat:

 

[Texas Splash]

Welcome to TFP!

 

[Casey]

Welcome!

 

[Isaac-1]

Welcome, but this is the wrong time of year for the forum to be flooded with Australians, we typically see that around November

 

[Brekel]

Welcome, but this is the wrong time of year for the forum to be flooded with Australians...

LOL. It's a house I've just purchased, hence the timing. The previous owners didn't want to get a crane in to remove their 2 1/2 y.o. spa so they sold the house with it.
And it's a spa, sitting on 36°C currently (or 97° for most of you) - nice even when it's cold out

 

[Isaac-1]

Ah, does sound nice, at least when it is cold outside. Swim Spa's are kind of a strange case, and should probably be treated more like small swimming pools than a typical hot tub as the bather to water ratio is more like a small swimming pool than the typical 350 gallon hot tub. Hopefully that made sense, it has been a long day here and the words sound a bit circular, but it is the best I can come up with at the moment.

 

[Brekel]

Yes, makes perfect sense. After a bit of reading, I was thinking of running the levels pretty much like a pool, but with the alkalinity maybe a bit lower due to the increased aeration.

The FC was somewhere over 120 ppm when we moved in (estimating based on what I've done to reduce it) - partly because the heater element failed before we bought the place, resulting in the filter pump and SWG running continuously for who knows how many days, attempting to bring the temp up. With the cheap DPD kit and strips I had at first I didn't realize how high it was - I only knew that it was over 20, but wasn't coming down like it should!

After some drastic measures to lower it, and buying a decent test kit I've started to get my levels under control. Now we can get in ourselves rather than using it to bleach the linen!

I had to replace the shaft seals on two of the pumps. I don't know if this was just the result of age, or if the high FC contributed to their failure.

Currently it's at:
FC 3
CC 0
CYA 0 (I'll add some, and up the FC accordingly)
pH 7.8
TA 150
CH 110

 

[Isaac-1]

My suggestion is don't chase a TA number, instead chase pH stability after all as long as you are not concerned with calcium scale and watching your CSI, it does not really matter what the TA number is, what you should care about is your pH stability.