New to me hot tub, use ahh-some on untreated water??

[motubbin]

Hello all, I was given an older hot tub this summer and I have been working on getting it ready. I now have the tub up and running with all the repairs it needed done and everything working properly.

Tub info:

2005 LA Spas Allure III
3 person, 230gal capacity
Was installed at a house a friend bought a couple of years ago and was functional at that time. They didn't use it, drained the water and it sat on their mostly covered patio for the last couple years without being used. In June I believe it was he gave me the tub and I went and moved it across town to my house and have been working on it here and there ever since.

My question:

I had a couple of leaks that had to be fixed, once that was done I filled the tub to check them. I then ran into a heating issue which is also now fixed. So at this point I have a fully functioning tub full of untreated hot water that has been in it for about a week, but only been hot the last 2 days. I am currently waiting on a bunch of replacement jet parts, new filters, etc to be delivered. (NEVER order from poolandspapartssuperstore.com!! :thumbdown: ) I also have not purchased any water treatment chemicals yet, as I am not 100% of what I really need. I do however already have a jar of ahh-some purge cleaner. What I am wondering is it a big deal to start running the ahh-some purge through the system WITHOUT treating the water first?? I know the instructions say to have the water balanced. But I know I will be purging at least 2x, possibly more if it needs it. Seems like a bit of a waste of time and money to treat the water when I know I’m going to have to dump it and fill it another time or two before it's ready to fill for use.

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[jblizzle]

I would certainly use the Ahh-some on a used spa before I would want to use it. You are going to end up dumping the water after the treatment anyway, so no need to treat the water first. Not sure what the instructions really mean about being "balanced" ... technically the tap water should be "balanced" already.

 

[Tstjohn14]

I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that there should be at least chlorine in the water to kill the nasties that the Ah some will purge, even though the water will be dumped

 

[dlleno]

Accurate balance isn't necessary. If things are reasonably close Get some bleach and ahhsome away. How close are your numbers? Probably more important at this point is to treat with a stain and scale control product. Your unbalanced water could be attacking the heater and you don't want to oxidize copper when you dose with chlorine

 

[motubbin]

I only have 3 measurements currently:

pH = 8.0
TA = 90ppm
CH = 80ppm

I didn't run any other tests since I don't have any chlorine or stabilizer in the water.

 

[dlleno]

With those numbers youre probably good.
Ph is a little high and that will moderate the effectiveness of chlorine so if it were me I'd get some acid and bleach locally and go for it. Or just dose to 10ppm ish with dichlor.

Ahhsome does contain an antibacterial disinfectant and it does kill biofilms by itself but, as you know, everyone here and unique solutions themselves all insist that this capability must be supplemented with shock level dose of chlorine

 

[motubbin]

OK, thank you for all your help!!

Keeping in mind I have no clue what I am doing yet as far as water treatment goes since I haven’t gotten that far, which of those methods you mentioned is the best route to go so I can get started with the ahh-some on Saturday morning?

At this point I don't have ANY chemicals yet. I know buying all the chemicals I will need to maintain the tub online will be the cheapest route in the future, but for now I have a Leslie Pool Supply local to me. I plan to make a trip there Saturday morning to grab what I need to get started with both the ahh-some purge and then my first round of chemicals for the first fill that will be treated for use. I need to start building a list of what all I need to pick up!

 

[dlleno]

Ok cool there are many here who can help. Start by studying the stickies and ask questions. You have a sanitizer decision to make first and then get the appropriate taylor test kit!

 

[motubbin]

Yep, I've decided on chlorine, and I just received the appropriate Taylor test kit. I've been reading through the sticky on "how to use chlorine in your spa". Which has great info on the balancing aspect, but for sanitization it focuses on the bleach method, and I don't think I want to go that route just yet. I think to get started I just want to go standard chlorine until I have an idea of what I'm doing. Specially in regards to just wanting to get the ahh-some purge process started this weekend. So I will be trying to figure out exactly what I need for that in the next couple days.

 

[dlleno]

Yea in your situation id say just go straight dichlor granules