A hot tub is a large investment much like purchasing a car, and you want your investment to last as long as possible before upgrading. You also want the people who use it to be safe which is why you need hot tub chemicals. Keeping your spa clean and sanitized is not only important for your tub but it’s also important for the people in it. Let’s take a look at some of the chemicals that you NEED for your hot tub.
Sanitizer
First you have to decide on which type of sanitizer you will use. There is chlorine, bromine, baquaspa and minerals. Personally we recommend using a mineral system such as the Frog or Nature 2 because it still uses chlorine (a very effective sanitizer) but very little of it. Bromine is mostly used for indoor hot tubs and swimming pools because it doesn’t give off an odor like chlorine. Baqaspa or another type of biguanide like SoftSoak are great too but can be more expensive than the others.
Spa Shock!
Shock is a quick increase in sanitizer that kills most bacteria very fast and should be done weekly or bi-weekly depending on which type of sanitizer you’ve chosen. It’s a quick way to sanitize a hot tub after heavy use. So let’s say you just had a huge party and you had a bunch of people in your hot tub. When they all leave you can shock the hot tub to ensure that you kill the bacteria left over from all those different people
Alkalinity and pH
To keep your sanitizer at the right level at all times you need to keep your water’s pH balanced. pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of a solution. So basically if your water has low pH then your water will be acidic like battery acid. If you water has high pH it will be dry like baby powder. So keeping it perfect at 7.4 to 7.6 will help maintain your sanitizer and allow it to work properly. Alkalinity is a pH buffer which helps keeps your pH from changing drastically. So first get your alkalinity level correct between 100ppm and 150ppm and then (if needed) adjust your pH levels. These two chemicals are very inexpensive.
Calcium
Calcium hardens the water so that it will prevent the water from slowly eating away and breaking down your spa’s shell. This chemical is important for the life of your spa and not really for the health of it’s occupants. This chemical is very inexpensive and needs to be added at the beginning of every fresh refill.
So in conclusion these are all the chemicals you NEED to care for your hot tub properly. Of course there are other chemicals you can use including, clarifiers and cleaners but you should only keep these must have chemicals on hand.
