Mysterious "floaties" in hot tub water ?!

[erivette]

I'm trying to help my brother. His hot tub filled with white particles. He went to a pool store and they told him it was a calcium issue. He drained the hot tub and refilled it but there's still stuff floating in the water. Most of it is tiny, but when you can find a piece large enough to grab it's almost translucent and it's dissolves when you rub it, frankly when you first get it in your hand it looks like a tiny piece of skin. I would think calcium would be hard. I took my test kit over there and his current readings are:

FC 4 (we just added bleach)
CC ?? (water was turning purple instead of pink - I've never seen that before)
TA 80 (put in baking soda to get it to 110)
PH 7.4
CH 160

There are no rings or anything around the water line. His water is crystal clear besides the floating particles. Any ideas??? I suggested he SLAM it and left him my test kit and gave him instructions. He generally uses Bromine in his hot tub. I've never had to SLAM when it's bromine, is there anything different about the process?

Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? Hopefully I haven't left out something that you'll need to know.

Thanks so much for your help!!!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Mysterious "floaties" in hot tub water ?!

Biofilms.

Basically thick human waste sludge mixed with bacteria...Yuck, nasty.


Get some Ahh-some (Ahh-Some Water Cleanser for Your Pool, Hut Tub, Jet Bath, Swim Spa and Washing Machine -) and purge the tub. Take pictures so you can gross everyone out.

And, no, no amount of chlorine or bromine shock will fix biofilms. It has to be lifted off the plumbing surfaces using a surfactant. Ahh-some is hands down the winning brand.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[erivette]

Re: Mysterious "floaties" in hot tub water ?!

You wouldn't see anything in pictures, it's tiny particles, when I said we tried catching a big piece to see what it felt like it was maybe 1/4 the size as the head of an eraser on a pencil and paper thin, the rest are extremely tiny. It took us a long time to find that one piece we could grab. I will look into that product. I couldn't find instructions on their website, do you know if you have to drain the hot tub again or how this product gets rid of it?

Could it be anything else? His hot tub is less than a year old and only used occasionally by him and his wife. I've had my hot tub for at least 10 years and have never seen anything like this.

Thank you!

 

[erivette]

I was reading thru other posts about biofilm and they say it feels slimy. These particles aren't slimy at all. My brother tests his hot tub every 2-3 days and he opened the cover to test and there was all this stuff floating in it. It looks like tiny white flecks, but we put the blowers on to stir them up and managed to find one piece we could catch, albeit tiny still. It appeared white in the water but in my hand was more opaque. It was soft and vanished when I rubbed it between my fingers. There is no film on the shell and nothing at the water line. It's just stuff you can see floating. He said it was considerably less since he drained/refilled but it's still there. I really don't think it's biofilm, although we will give Ahhh-some a try but it won't be delivered till late this week or early next week. In the meantime while we are waiting for the product to arrive does anyone have any other suggestions of what it might be or anything we can try?

 

[Arobbert]

Judging by the age of the tub this could be calcium stearate. I had this problem. You can test for it. Capture one or more of the larger particals. Put it in a about 1/2 oz of water in a test tube from your test kit. Add 5 drops of bleach. If the material dissolves it's bio-film. If it doesn't it's probably calcium stearate. You can learn more about it at this link http://www.ahhsome.com/ahh-jetted-baths-hot-tubs-swim-spas/
On the lower right hand side of the page are two links under the heading "Step by Step Protocol to Eradicate Calcium Stearate From Plumbing"