proper use of chlorine and non-chlorine shock to extend life of water

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M

MojoMike

0
Dec 27, 2013
7
Placerville California
there is a serious drought. I do not want to dump 400 gallons of water into my yard until I absolutely have to. I am in month 7, used dichlor on exit of daily uses for first couple months until CYA spiked, then just bleach,along with weekly dose of Spa perfect. Chemistry has been stable, but it get a little stinky sometimes which I now realize is played out chlorine.. combined?

Sooo... I started using Leslie Fresh 'n Clear oxidizing shock, which I hope is attacking the accumulated byproducts of this chemistry experiment and letting the bleach do it's cootie-killing job.

Is this a legitimate approach?

And should I switch off days, bleach one day, oxidizer the next?

The FC seems to stick around longer since I started using the oxidizer, but it's still a little stinky. a different kind of stinky. Wife reports that it hurts lungs. Am i soaking her in toxic soup?

thanks.
 
Welcome to the forum :wave:

What you are tossing in might be why you are having an issue with smell and it is why you spiked with CYA/stabilizer.

We don't use pool store products and we do our own water testing. We can help you with your pool but you might need to do a little reading on how we do it.
http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/

The method of pool care we use is pretty simple and also cheaper then doing it the pool store way. If we have you toss something into the pool you will know why and what it's going to do rather than just having a 20-40 dollar bottle of something handed to you to "try this".

Are you testing your own water or is the pool store ??

Can you please post your last water test ?? :testresults:

Is the 400 gallons what you've been told you need to dump to correct the high CYA ??

Please add your pool info to your signature http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/165-getting-started
 
"Use our Fresh ’N Clear Chlorine-Free Shock in your swimming pool and leave your water sparkling clean! This powerful shock uses available oxygen to eliminate contaminants, organic waste, chlorine orders, and prevents algae while freeing up existing chlorine in your pool. It conveniently allows you to enter the pool within 15 minutes of adding the shock to your pool.

Fresh ’N Clear is a quick-acting formula that dissolves fast in your pool, leaving you with more time to relax in it. This Chlorine-Free Shock allows you to clean your pool as an effective alternative to standard chlorine shocks. This means you get the same clean without killing microorganisms or adding high levels of chlorine that can irritate swimmers skin and eyes."

It sounds good but just maintaining the proper amount of chlorine (bleach from Walmart or ...) will do the same thing and is likely less expensive and you are only dealing with one chemical not two. If the pool is maintained with a measured and calculated amount of chlorine you no longer need to shock the pool. The trick is to have enough chlorine to keep the pool sanitary, clean and sparkly and it's not the same FC ppm level for each pool. The higher your CYA level is the higher the chlorine level needs to be and that might be where you are having a problem. As you can see in the chart, the higher the CYA the higher the target FC level is. http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/128-chlorine-cya-chart-slam-shock
Water can look crystal and still have a lot of unwanted stuff in there like bacteria and things.
 
Have you considered adding an ozonator to help break down CC without adding to build up of stuff in your water? You can get a basic Del brand unit for around $100, plus about $25 for a venturi injector.

Ike
 
Guessing the oxidizing shock is MPS ? AFAIK it will definitely offload *some* of the work bleach would otherwise have to do (it oxidizes but doesn't sanitize, chlorine does both), but when I looked at local prices MPS seemed to be more expensive than bleach for the same result.

That's how we end up coming back to using bleach for everything ;)
 
Welcome to TFP! :wave:

Leslie's Fresh 'N Clear Spa Shock appears to be MPS, but it sounds like either your CYA got too high or you've just built up too many contaminants in your water for even chlorine bleach to handle. In theory, the Spa Perfect enzymes should break down other contaminants in the water but obviously there is something not getting handled by any of chlorine, MPS or enzymes. It also sounds like you don't have an ozonator.

If you were to use Dichlor-only, then the standard water replacement interval (WRI) is (1/9) x (Spa Size in Gallons) / (# person-hours per day) so if you are soaking with 2 people for 20 minutes (let us know your actual bather load) then that's (1/9) x (400) / (2*20/60) = 67 days. With the Dichlor-then-bleach method people usually are able to go at least twice as long so 133 days or around 4-1/2 months. You've gone 7 months which is well beyond what you can expect assuming I got your bather-load correct.

If you really can't change your water, then there are products that can coagulate nearly all the organics left in the spa so that they get filtered out, but that's normally only done in commercial/public pools since spas just get a water change. If you have any landscaping and do any watering of it, then 400 gallons will be next to nothing. You should check your water bill for your daily water usage in gallons per day. 400 gallons would be 13 gallons per day for a month though you'll keep your water for probably 5 months so that's only 2.7 gallons per day.
 
Thanks so much to everyone for your help. To clarify this is a bullfrog hot tub model R6L, 13 months old and I assume it has an ozonator but after a half hour of research it appears there are upgrades perhaps to the base, but I wouldn't buy a new premium, hot tub in 2013 without one would I? Used silk balance at the dealer's recommendation at first and then I discovered this forum and tried alternatives. cut over 2 over the counter products plus bleach with mixed results last year...but then there was that house sitter for the weekend...

For the first couple months of the current water life cycle I use Leslie chlorinated shock-dichloro and CYA. Cya level spiked at200 to 300 after about 3 months and I cut over to bleach, dosing after each use. It would burn off before we got back in. That's how I got into my seventh month on this water. The other levels have been good. alkalinity runs between 80 and 100 Phineas has been around 7.2 although in the early going it tended to drop and I had to raise it, but I'm told by a local people here that local water has slightly lower pH the hardness I also had to increase a little bit. I'm able to keep it in line with over-the-counter products. what's happening now is that I started using the MPS non-chlorine oxidizing shock and got a bad smell...at first I was not using enough shock. I reread the instructions more carefully and added the appropriate amount for my 375 gallon spa, and saw the free chlorine level jump.

after 2 days of no use it still had free chlorine and total chlorine last night in acceptable range.

I put in a splash of chlorine last night after using it and this morning I'm at 10 parts per million free chlorine and when I got in it last night it was around 3 but I use it as a therapy tool so I was in it for maybe 20 or 30 minutes ...a bunch of stretching and sweating.

The total chlorine is also staying high. It's up around five to seven parts per million right now so it appears that the oxidizing shock burned off the combined chlorine?? And is making the stuff that's already in their work harder. omehow.

The stinky smell is greatly diminished this morning and it seems like some marriage of these two products using the chlorine is a sanitizer and then using the MPS oxidizer to get rid of the combined chlorine as some sort of clarifying agent seems like a one-two punch.

I was just wondering what the experts say is the best way to balance These two things to stretch lige of watet. Thank you.

A
So- I use HACH test strips and feel pretty confident with them. if only they tested combined chlorine and also bacteria levels.
 
*wall of text crits you for 9000*

My tub has been fine with getting CYA to 30 and daily dosing of bleach up to about 7. I keep it above 2 FC all the time. A few times it dipped below after excessive use so I did a mini-SLAM and cleaned the filter each time. I've had to replace probably 200-300 gallons of the 400 gallon tub since opening in May (kids LOVE to splash my balanced water out). Probably time to add more CYA... full tests with a good kit such as the TF-100 or K-2006C are the only way to keep things in line.
 
Just keep in mind that MPS shows up as CC in DPD (shades of pink/red compared against a standard) chlorine tests and as FC in FAS-DPD (count the drops until the sample goes from pink/red to clear) chlorine tests.

So next time it will work better if you don't use so much Dichlor. Use it until you've cumulatively added around 30-40 ppm FC which should be about 2 weeks and then switch to using bleach. Then once a month use Dichlor for a day or two. That should maintain a decent CYA level and your water may last longer. The higher CYA you have now makes the chlorine less effective. On the other hand, your water is really full of bather waste that doesn't get oxidized by chlorine or MPS. You don't see this problem in residential pools because there is usually enough rain overflow or backwashing to dilute the water enough for the usually very low bather load.

If you can live with your chlorine and MPS combination and it works for you, then that's fine for now. In the future you can try Dichlor-then-bleach done properly and see how long you can go. If you run into problems with your current water and absolutely cannot replace it, then the product used in commercial/public pools for rather thoroughly removing as much from the water as possible is SeaKlear PRS which is a 2 stage product that must be used very carefully according to instructions. You HAVE to wait between the two stages for the specific timeframe indicated by the instructions. Also, this product is designed for pools so at around $30 you'd be getting a LOT more product than you need for a spa and while it should work for spas (scaled down in quantities, of course), you'd be in uncharted territory using this. You could alternatively use a more standard spa clarifier, but it may not remove what you need since your issue isn't so much water clarity as hard-to-oxidize and filter chemicals.
 

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To chemgeek: thank you. So it sounds like my test strips that I like so much are not going to be adequate now that I'm mixing and matching and chlorine and MPs oxidizing shock. I guess the question remains on how best to marry the usage of these two. perhaps you address that too, I'll reread your post thanks again.
 
To bridgeman- thank you. Yes MPS is more expensive, plus much more is required. i complicated things by underdosing the first couple times not sure what that did but it confuse things or at least me. but it eats combined chlorine which is nevcessary if you are trying to stretch the life of your water... seems like a good thing. Along with your enzyme of choice.
 
If you change you water you can dechlorinate it (using hydrogen peroxide is easiest) before dumping it and I doubt that the water will be bad for your plants. They'll like the organics in the soil as it will feed the bacteria that are there, some of which are beneficial to plants (i.e. nitrogen-fixing bacteria). The water will also be rich in nitrates.

If you didn't let your CYA climb so high then I don't think you would be needing to use any of the MPS. The MPS is only needed because the chlorine has become less effective because of the high CYA level (MPS is not affected by CYA).
 
let me start out with sorry for having my head in the sand. I didn't realize you had posted in the "Spa" section and my first response I was thinking you had a pool. :ncool:

Might want to add the spas info to your "signature": http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/165-getting-started

My tub is in the basement and I have to pump it out the window as I have a septic system and can't dump it down the drain in there. No damage to grass or plants for the years I've been doing it.
 
Thanks to everyone for all the sage Spa advice, and for putting up with my learning curve on voice recognition software.
Both free and total chlorine levels have remained stable for several days. It's been crazy hot here and we didnt get in it for at least 4 days. So I haven't added any new chlorine, but did hit it with a dose of MPs once.


The low grade smell I talked about before diminished after mps treatment, but has returned.

Wife has sensitive skin and she ias no problems to date, so I battle on.

pretty weird that I **** my wife in this stuff but worry about putting it on my vegetable garden, huh?

So I appreciate you reiterating that 7 months is really pushing it, and that 400 gallons isn't that much to dump out. I guess I'm just being stubborn.

in all likelihood, I am on the verge of losing this battle and having to replace the water. Will let you how how it turns out.
 
Wanted to followup on my quest to extend life of my hot tub water. We took a 2 week vacation and left instructions for house sitter to use 3/4 cup bleach one day, MPS oxidizer next day for 13 days we were gone.

Got back and it was a little stinky but thought I could probably recover it. But decided 8 months was enough at least for a spachem student. Also had thirsty trees.

recall that I foolishly let our cya get way too high, which complicated this experiment. I ended up using bleach after usage as needed always testing first. The oxidizer extended the chlorine's life. I used the oxidizer once a week or as needed if it started smelling, which it did numerous times, but never terrible. Also used a little antifoam stuff a couple times.

Usage this summer was almost daily for me... 3x per week for wife. We always showered first and I used Spa perfect (enzyme additive) weekly.

Filters never got gummy. I only cleaned them 3x during the 8 months, only once with the proper stuff. I'm new enough that I don't have spare filters yet.

My wife, who is sensitive to everything it seems, was the parakeet in my 102 degree coal mine. She was ok with the water till the end. Nary a skin prob, even when ir started getting away from me.

Other observations:
. The oxidizer is expensive.
. The bleach is not.
. Will optimize regimen to minimize use of oxidizer.
. Current oxidizer: Hasa Hi-Temp Spa Oxidizer

Just did a full purge with Spa Purge. Scrubbed all surfaces with diluted vineger and scouring pad, cleaned filter with mild bleach solution and rinsed rinsed rinsed.

The cleaning and purging was a pain in the *** with my bullfrog and all of its removable jetpacks.... Lots of weird little places to rinse. Also seems like a partial fill, run jets, then dump water would have been better. Quick research said not neccessary, so I hit all jets and port with hose and bailed all that rinse water. What a pain.

Some thirsty ponderosa pine trees got the old water, which got no new chemicals for at least 2 days... probably more. Hope I didn't poison them. Trees are on a hillside and I added the water uphill so that it would filter through the dirt a little before hitting the roots hopefully.

thanks again to everyone who advised me. Based on this drought -concerned rookie spachem's experience I would have to say that spa water can safely be stretched far more than the 3 to 4 months recommended.
 
My last fill was about 4.5 months. Probably could have gone longer but the inadvertent switch to a bromine tub left me with a sour smell in my nose. Plus I wanted to do a full deep clean flush as it had never been done...

Thanks for the detailed update!
 
Two comments. First, note that Ahh-Some does a better job than Spa Purge, Swirl Away, Spa System Flush and other similar products. Second, your need for non-chlorine shock was likely due to the high CYA level. Those using the Dichlor-then-bleach method and not having their CYA get high are usually able to use chlorine alone and not run into any issues and have the water last at least twice as long as with Dichlor-only. Next time you try this, you should see what happens with chlorine alone, but properly managing the CYA level not letting it get too high. When CYA is higher, then chlorine can take too long to oxidize some chemicals and if MPS can oxidize those then that is why it worked for you in this experiment.

Now it may be that using MPS on occasion would still be helpful extending water life even if CYA is managed, but we don't know that yet.
 
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