Swim Spa Forum

Hello all. I am having one heck of a time getting the chemical balance right in my swim spa. It seems that if my chlorine levels are within range, then the PH is off. So, I add PH to the swim spa. Check it the next day - and the water is really cloudy. Add some water clarifier, and check it the next day, and now chlorine levels are down. It always seems to be either add chlorine, or add ph - and this would be on a daily or every 2 day basis. I really don't like the cloudy water as it is not appealing. I would also like to say that this above exercise is in addition to the "weekly chemical regime" that the spa receives. Does anyone have any advice on getting that perfect balance between chlorine, ph and nice clear water? I would appreciate it, as my hair is growing thin from how much I've pulled out

[dhansen]

All types of sanitizers (chlorine) will affect your pH in some way. Some will push your pH up; which makes your sanitizer ineffective. Other types of sanitizers will push your pH down. A low pH will cause the sanitizer levels to dissipate prematurely; it will leave the water before it kills anything.

The best way to keep you water balanced is to first start with ensuring that your Total Alkalinity (TA) is in the ideal range; which is 100ppm-150ppm. When the TA is in this ideal range, it makes much more difficult for you pH to fluctuate. An ideal TA “locks in” your pH levels.

Once your TA is set, then balance you pH; which needs to be 7.4-7.6. When you pH is in the ideal range, your sanitizer (chlorine) will be most effective.

The only other item to add is that adding a sanitizer on a regimented basis (every day to every other day) is to be expected.

Good Luck!

I also agree, you must have your Total Alkalinity in range to balance your ph. I would also suggest increasing the length of your filter cycles. Crystal clear water is a combination of filtration and chemical balance.

Thankyou - that is the most helpful information I've gotten to date. I look forward to taking your tips and putting them to good use!

Hi all. One further question to this thread. We realized after my first question, that TA was the thing to balance first. Since then we have been trying to do that, and have had a degree of success with the clarity of the water.

However, the problem now seems to be this: seeing as the TA was very high, we started trying to bring those levels down. When it got to the acceptable level, the PH was low, so we added a bit of PH "Increase". We then left for the weekend, and checked the levels again on Sunday. The TA level had "shot up" to about 3 times it's acceptable level, and the PH was once again back in an acceptable level.

I don't understand how the TA could have shot up that much; and my question is this: If we bring the TA back down to an acceptable level, will the PH in turn adjust to an acceptable level without having to add PH increase?

I hope that makes sense. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated - thank you.

Hello all,
I have been selling SwimSpas for almost 20 years. I discovered this forum recently as we are always getting people asking us chemical issues, most are not our customers. I make this brief, there are 2 chemicals used in pools & spas, bromine and chlorine. Traditionally, bromine is used in spas and chlorine is used in pools. Pools use chlorine because of price and of course there a stabilizers for chlorine, meaning it will protect your chlorine from getting eaten up by sunlight. Sun will kill chlorine very fast if you do not have stabilizers in your pool, the same issue we found with swim spas (though not the same extent), but sunlight will quickly kill the chlorine in a swim spa in addition to the extra heat not normally found in a pool. I agree, keeping your total Alk balance is very important to the effectiveness of your chemistry.
Cheers, hope everyone enjoys their swim spas. Feel free to ask me anymore questions.