Changing water in Spa?

[Beanie]

I was just wondering how often you all change the water in your spa? I heard every 6 months and then some say once a year. We have a stand alone spa on a deck and we don't use it everyday. I would say once or twice a week in the summer and maybe 2 or 3 times a week in the winter. We have a 400 gallon spa and the water is very clear and sparkly!

Just wondering if there is any 'set' answer on this? Thanks!

 

[njoynrpool]

I am gonna bump this. I want to know too. I have a 450 gal. tub thats 1 yr. old. The pool supply told me to change the water every 3-6 mo. Thats alot of water in my book when I am on county water.

 

[Guest]

If you are using bromine or chlorine change it every 3-4 months. If you are using bromine and have an ozonator change it every 2-3 months. The high bather load to volume of water in a spa necessitates the more frequent water changes. If you do not use the spa more than a few times a month then you can probably go a bit longer but it's the chemicals that you are putting in that become the limiting factor. If you use the spa daily you might need to change it as often as every month or two. Good indications that your water needs changing are excessive foaming, 'dull' water, cloudy water, off smells, even though all your levels are correct or water that doesn't balance properly no matter what you do.
If you develop white water mold or pink slime (both bacterial) then you need to drain and sterilize the spa with high chlorine levels and then refill and rebalance.
Hope this is helpful.

 

[RavenNS]

Waterbear & I have had this discussion before. ( & we do not entirely agree ..LOL)

I have two hottubs. (One indoors & one outside.)

general rule of thumb ( from all the hot tub dealers around here & the manufacture guidelines provided with my tubs), is based on TDS ( total dissolved solids) numbers
which you should be testing.

Once you hit 1500, you should really get prepared to do a good "tub clean" ( with corrosive type chemicals, you can get at any hot-tub store.. or probably walmart) and then dump the water.

You can go as high as 1700, but I wouldn't let it get past that. 1500 is really your target.



on a more personal note, I find the water is actually "performing" at it's best in the 800 - 1100 TDS range.
New water doesn't bubble the same way. Old water also doesn't perform well & you may find that you start having foam ( & then you have to use a foam remover -- driving that TDS up even higher )

 

[chem geek]

I won't get into the details, but the water quality has very little to do with TDS or even with time as it does with what is getting put into the water. There were some hot tub users on another forum who tried using Dichlor for one week and then switching to bleach (they used the tub pretty much every day) and were able to go without a water change for almost 6 months and they probably could have gone longer if they wanted to. The TDS went higher, but since it is mostly salt it didn't matter very much. The more common problem is when people use only Dichlor which has the CYA level climb and that is what usually causes the water to become dull more quickly as the chlorine effectiveness drops from the high CYA levels. If people enter the hot tub with lotions or oils, then the water will need changing more frequently as well. If one is using bromine from tablets, then the DMH in the tablets builds up similar to CYA from Dichlor.

The APSP-11 proposal for the Water Replacement Interval (WRI) is when either the TDS exceeds 1500 ppm relative to startup or after the number of days that is (1/3)x(spa volume in U.S. gallons)/(No. Bathers/Day). Both rules are just a proxy for accumulation of contaminants and chlorine or bromine sources. They are approximate. The "Dichlor then bleach" approach doesn't build up contaminants as quickly -- it mostly just builds up plain old salt (sodium chloride).

Richard

 

[Guest]

As Richard said, TDS is a bogus measurement. The time intevals I gave above work for the vast majority of portable spas. As Richard pointed out What you put into the water has a big impact on how often you need to change the water. The time recommendations I gave above will work out for the vast majority of portable spas and hot tubs.

 

[Sjde]

What does this mean?-
you should really get prepared to do a good "tub clean" ( with corrosive type chemicals, you can get at any hot-tub store.. or probably walmart) and then dump the water.

 

[Isaac-1]

Personally I change the water in my hot tub about 3 times per year, and use Ahh-Some jetted tub cleaner with each water change.

Ike

p.s. there are a number of Ahh-Some products now, so don't confuse jetted tub cleaner with filter cartridge cleaner, etc.

 

[twodogs02]

Great info in this post thanks Chem geek. A quick question when it's time to do a water change - can you add ahh-some to the water you are about to change, or do you need to dump, refill, treat with ahh-some using clean water, dump then refill and balance?

With the dry summer we had, my well pump pumped the well dry trying to fill my hot tub. Lucky for me I was closing the pool so I ran my waste hose from pool filter to tub and had it filled with balanced water with borates in 10 minutes.

In the winter, I will need to truck in water when it's time to change so naturally the fewer times I need to drain and fill, the better.

 

[Sjde]

Yes, I would like to know this too, because the instructions say to do it the 2nd way.