Bad Sodium Bromide - Is it safe to add more?

[boley]

I appear to have received a bad container of Sodium Bromide (Leisure Time brand) from Amazon. The Sodium Bromide container was not sealed. The included chemical was basically a big chunk of material - not granules (likely had gotten wet). Plus the container was only 70% of the advertised weight. I was unaware of this situation because I was out of town. My wife went ahead and used it to start up our new spa.


There appears to be at least some Sodium Bromide in the container. It does somewhat respond to chlorine additions, but much less than it should based upon PoolMath.


Is it safe to simply go buy more Sodium Bromide and add it to the spa? The worst I can think of is that we simply have a larger than normal Bromide bank. I guess this is safe since using a floater and Sodium Bromine tabs would constantly be adding to the bank anyway. Thought it best to double check though.



If needed here are the test results I have obtained so far. Using a Taylor k-2106 test kit


9-15-2016 evening: Added 3 oz Sodium Bromide. 1 hour later added 3 oz of bleach (8.25%)


9-16-2016 afternoon: Bromine 3, pH 8.0±, TA 80, CH 100 (pH reading was darker than highest color on chart)
Used spa then added 3oz bleach (8.25%) post use


9-17-2016 morning: Br 0.5
Used spa then added 3oz bleach (8.25%) post use.
4.5 Br about 20 min after bleach addition. PoolMath says this should have been 15.5 ppm Bromine
Added 7 grams of dry acid at 10:10 am
pH 8.0+ (off the chart) at 10:30. Added 13g of dry acid
7.5 ph at 10:45.
Added 3.5 oz bleach

 

[JVTrain]

You may not be reaching your bromine target levels because of residual bather waste at additions. When you dose with bleach after a soak, retest after 30 minutes. You're likely not to be at the target amount due to some of the bromine being quickly consumed by residual bather waste before retesting.

 

[boley]

I purchased new Sodium Bromide on Monday (Sept 19) and added it to the spa. 1.5 oz for 30ppm. That seems to have fixed the issue. Levels are as expected overnight. Levels as expected following bleach additions after use.

It seems pretty apparent that the product Amazon supplied was either fake or exposed to the elements, rendering it useless. So it appears that over the weekend I was basically running a chlorine spa without CYA. This would explain the rapid vanishing of fairly large bleach additions (for a spa).

I plan to continue using Option 2 in the care guide on this site. Since we are using the spa at least once a day, the post use chlorine should be enough to keep my Bromide turned into Bromine.

Thanks