Maintaining the perfect chemical balance is essential to ensuring the quality and longevity of your spa.
Here's how avoid some common problems:
CLOUDY WATER:
Cloudy water is a common problem for those who are new to spa and water maintenane, luckily it is easy to resolve.
Firstly, there are many factors that can contribute to your water becoming cloudy such as:
- High alkalinity level
- Lack of chemical sanitizer resulting in algae and bacteria growth
- High concentration of metal from the household water source
- Dirty filter
- Biofilm
The first thing to check would be the filter. Whether its clogged up with gunk or covered in algae, remove the filter and give it a good deep clean. If your filter can't function properly, it will show in your water.
If you've figured out that it's a specific chemical that needs to be adjusted, fix that first. Then test your water to make sure all chemical levels are where they need to be. Adjust accordingly if needed.
Algae and bacteria can be stopped in their tracks with a healthy dose of spa shock. We reccomend that you shock the water once a week if not more depending on the volume of your spa.
For biofilm, and just for good spa maintenance, flush your pipe work whenever you change your water. Before you drain your hot tub, add some spa flush to your water. Seeing foam or dirt when it circulates is normal. This is just the biofilm and gunk being flushed out of the pipe work.
Last resort...drain and refill your tub. You should be doing this every 3 months (please say you are, if not, do it now). But if your cloudy water just won't go away despite all your efforts, it might be time to drain and refill your spa and start fresh whilst considering all of the above factors.
HOW TO BALANCE YOUR PH LEVEL
Let's keep it simple...on the genral pH scale, 7 is perfectly neutral water, while lower numbers indicate more acididity and higher numbers indicate more alkalinity.
When you test your water with the test strips, you're looking for that pH sweet spot of between 7.2 - 7.6. If your spa's pH levels are outside of that range, you could be in for some unhealthy and potentially damaging water in your spa. This could include bacterial growth or corrosion on parts of the spa.
LOW PH IN YOUR TUB
PH levels below 7.2 could spell trouble for your spa. Highly acidic water makes it more difficult for your chemical sanitizer to work effectivel, leaving you exposed to potentially dangerous contaminants.
Acidic water leaves you more exposed to bacteria such as legionella (which causes legionnaires disease) as well as many others. Acidic water can also corrode spa components such as headrests or jets. These can be expensive to replace on damaged.
HIGH PH IN YOUR TUB
When your pH level goes above 7.6, your spa water can be described as '
basic'. This essentially means your spa water is poorly sanitized.
Basic spa water can result in a flaky scale build up around your spa surfaces. The scale is due to a hard build up of calcium caused by the high pH. Cloudy water is also another symptom of high pH levels.
FIX YOUR PH LEVEL
Using certain types of
pH increaser or
pH decreaser will likely affect the overall levels of the pH.
The best product to raise the pH level is
magnesium oxide mixed with a variety of other chemicals, or to put it simply,
pH plus.
The best product to decrease the pH level would be
sodium bisulfate. This both lowers and stabilises your pH so will have the best overall result. This is also known as 'pH minus'.
We recommend diluting all chemicals before adding them to your spa. This helps the chemical circulate around the spa to ensure te best result.
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