You want to avoid adding chemicals to your spa that effect the pH. Sodium Dichlor is a good choice as the sanitizer if you are going to drain and refill you spa or hot tub when the stabilizer exceeds 100. You can also use it as the shock treatment and use a saltwater chlorine generator to provide the continuous sanitizer. Do not use a pool shock in your spa as they are not buffered for pH and you may have drastic fluctuations in your pH if you do. A saltwater chlorinator does raise the pH but it is very gradual and if your fill water has a low pH there may be a perfect balance.

As one of the first ColorChlor customers, we have been using our ColorChlor chlorine generator in our hot tub for years. We can honestly say this product has vastly improved our hot tub. There is no need to purchase chemical chlorine or bromine. The ColorChlor electronically creates chlorine from sodium chloride (salt) NaCl which is very inexpensive. Not much salt is needed to maximize performance. The salt in the water is hardly noticable but it actually makes your skin feel smoother after using the hot tub. There is no chlorine smell at all. You can actually help the environment by not using chemical chlorine! The ColorChlor provides the correct amout of chlorine even when you are away on vacation! The company representatives at ControlOMatic have always been most helpful with any questions we have had through the years. We recommend this product and this company!

Good question. I know there is a lot of confusion out there. Simply put, there is a lot more money to be made selling specialty chemicals instead of giving people a choice of using natural ingredients you can get at your local store.

Hope this helps.

Spa Wizard

Thanks,

Walt

First are chlorine and bromine tablets. They are extremely low in pH which causes your water to become very aggressive as the pH and total alkalinity start dropping to low levels. This causes metal parts to deteriorate potential discoloration to the shell and of course eye and skin irritation. Chlorine powders and tablets sold for spa use also contain cyanuric acid and bromine tablets contain BCDMH which actually inhibit the ability of chlorine or bromine to effectively sanitize, especially as the levels increase.

What about CYA (Cyanuric Acid/Conditioner)? CYA is in chlorine granules and tablets. This can be a controversial subject but here is the reality. CYA is not recommended for spa use because it lowers the ability of the chlorine to oxidize. (ORP – Oxidation Reduction Potential) This can be witnessed in any pool or spa with an ORP controller. With a spa, the hot water will degrade the chlorine faster than sunlight and since I rarely ever see a hot tub that isn’t covered, so why use it? If you use CYA in a spa, it will take more chlorine to keep it marginally sanitized. Very high levels of chlorine will cause corrosion and bleaching.

With all that said, you could use liquid chlorine, bleach or a chlorine generator. for more information on chlorine generators for spas and hot tubs, check out http://value.club.officelive.com/HotTubAccessories.aspx

Thanks

I have bought dry chlorine to put in and help clean the water , weekly and sometimes every other week,

It gets exspensive when buying from Spa stores.