First refill- little help needed

[lohmaraj]

Edited a little.

Just drained my spa for the first time and probably should have had a better plan before doing so...

how do I drain all the lines or do I not need to?

The spa is just a two person unit and I would guess its probably not more than 150 gallons but I really don't know... any good way to find out?

I've read the sticky on using bromine but am still a little confused and was probably not properly maintaining it properly for the last few months (had a frog stick and the pool store guys basically said I did not need to worry about it too much and just through some bromide in it about once a week)... luckily no algae growth and only occasionally a little cloudy and a little foaming.
It does appear to have an ozonator.

I don't have sodium Brominde but have the tablets as well as a "SpaGuard" product called Brominating Concentrate which it calls a one-step sanitizer and oxidizer. (it does contain 14.7% Sodium Bromide and 82.5% Sodium-dichloro-s-triazinetrione)
Is there a relatively quick way to get a Bromine reserve? How would I do that and what should I use to oxidize it to a useable amount of bromine?

If I read correctly, I could crush up probably just one tab after filling the spa and setting the PH and TA. But should I just use bleach as an oxidizer or can I use the bromide concentrate?

Thanks

 

[chem geek]

Since you are just refilling the spa, don't worry about draining the lines. The water replacement need not be 100%.

You can use the brominating concentrate by adding it after your soak if you want to use it up. Because it has some sodium bromide, it will slowly build up a bromide bank, though initially you'll have more of a chlorine spa until that happens (since the product is mostly Dichlor). However, in the future, the faster and less expensive way is to add sodium bromide as directed at 1/2 ounce per 100 gallons using one of the following nearly pure sodium bromide products Rendezvous Broma Start ($1.94 per ounce), Spa Specialties Robarb Bromine Energizer ($1.50 per ounce), Leisure Time Sodium Bromide ($1.57 per ounce), SeaKlear Spa Sodium Bromide ($0.98 per ounce), Natural Chemistry Spa Bromine Start ($0.77 per ounce), hth Brom-Start ($1.19 per ounce).

The ozone from your ozonator will oxidize bather waste and oxidize some bromide to bromine. However, it might only be enough to maintain a background level of bromine and not enough to handle a high bather load if you use the spa every day or two. If you find that the bromine level gets close to zero before your next soak, then you can add an oxidizer after your soak. The least expensive oxidizer to use would be chlorine bleach.

 

[lohmaraj]

GREAT info... thanks... Sodium Bromide is super cheap... I will get some order to have on hand! Its just my wife and I 90% of the time and we probably use the spa a total of 1 hour a week for two people... really not much at all... but in the past there were times that measured bromine was zero... but... I have no idea if there was a bromide bank or not... I somehow thought the "frog" was keeping me 100% safe...

thanks again.