What is going to be the easiest way to maintain my hot-tub?

[harleysilo]

My hot tub is a 2003 Nordic Sport, ya know the round ones with the cedar siding (holds approx. 250 gallons)? Anyways little over a year ago the computer board got fried and we got it repaired, so baring any other issues it will be with us for awhile.

Now prior to joining this site I had a routine to taking care of the water....i'm embarrassed to tell what it was but here goes. First off i used strips for testing. All i ever adjusted was Chlorine up and PH up or down. I used chlorine granules but sometimes I'd use bromine tabs or chlorine tabs, whatever i happened to have at the time. Often times the hot tube would reek of Chlorine, other times after a week or longer of no attention it would smell just yucky and i'd welcome the chlorine smell....I would drain and refill once ever 3-4 months and that first 2 weeks after a drain/refill was heaven.....

Now that I've learned a lot more than i knew before I realize how terrible all that was, and what i'm trying to figure out is what process do i want to have moving forward (hot tub got wired up yesterday, filled with water, and 4.1 oz. 6% bleach.

I'll have test numbers tonight.

My pool has a SWCG, so i'm not needing to deal with manually adding chlorine. I'm aware of the issues with CYA over time and Chlorine or Bromine tabs having CYA in them. The question is, it's only 250 gallons (i think) so for me to drain/refill to reduce CYA it wouldn't be an issue (cost or effort wise).

What would be the easiest maintenance routine? A floater? Is it trial and error to determine how many tabs go in it? Will i always be over-chlorinating it?

 

[harleysilo]

Re: What is going to be the easiest way to maintain my hot-t

So I emptied my tub, cleaned the filter and refilled.

Starting water test results were

FC 1
CC 0
TA 20
CH 30
PH 7.5
CYA 0

That night I added a little bleach to get it up to 4ppm and then later the wife and I used the hot tub for an hour or so.

Next evening i go to check it and of course the FC is 0 and the water is cloudy. I add bleach to get it up to 4 or so.

I also added baking soda and calcium. The How to maintain your hot tub thread gives very specific instructions on how to build up CYA with the Dicholor (sp), instead i measured out the appropriate amount and added it to the hot tub yesterday.

I'll test tonight to see how close TA and CH are, and test CYA just to see.

Any reason not to use stabilizer to raise CYA immediately so i can start using chlorine floaters?

 

[chem geek]

Re: What is going to be the easiest way to maintain my hot-t

I would not use chlorine floaters in the hot tub. They are too acidic for the small water volume and dissolve too quickly in the hot water. You should look at Using Chlorine in a Spa and Using Bromine in a Spa. Bromine using a floater (those tabs dissolve more slowly in hot water and the floaters are specially designed for spas) is easier to maintain, but chlorine isn't difficult once you get the hang of it. If you use the spa regularly, every day or two, then chlorine is easy since you just add chlorine after each soak. If you only soak once a week or less, then bromine may be easier for you so you don't have to add chlorine every day or two.

Note that with chlorine, one normally uses Dichlor initially to build up the CYA level and then switches over to using bleach. If you wanted to add CYA initially, you could do that with pure CYA. Up to you. Just don't add too much -- 30 ppm is usually sufficient assuming your spa is covered most of the time.