Help, my hot tub is cloudy and/or foamy! You may have heard the term shocking your hot tub. Shocking your hot tub is just part of regular maintenance you should do on a weekly basis to avoid creating odor and a dirty/cloudy looking hot tub. It can be a common problem amongst many hot tub owners. Thankfully, shocking is an easy fix. It is important to have the necessary chemicals on hand to keep your water clean, safe, and looking crystal clear.
Why Shock your Hot Tub?
While it is always a good idea to rinse off before hopping into your hot tub to avoid excess dirt and soaps from mixing with your hot tub water, there still might be lingering oils, dead skin, hair, deodorant, sweat, and other dirt particles that blend into the water. There are several outcomes to shocking your hot tub:
- Killing harmful bacteria – If you use chlorine or bromine based compounds in your shock, it will sanitize your water. non-chlorine shock does not sanitize, which is fine as you can add chlorine or bromine sanitizers separately on a regular basis as well.
- Oxidizing – Oxidizing is the process of removing organic matters (the particles that come off a persons body such as oils, dead skins, lotions, and other dirt). It breaks down the organic particles to remove them.
- Reactivates bromines– Using non-chlorine shock once a week will help the bromine sanitizer you add to your hot tub work more effectively. This oxidizes bromine ions and forms new bromines. Chlorine shock will activate chlorine chemicals that have been used in your hot tub to continue killing bacteria.
- Removes bromamines and chloramines from the water – These are the organic compounds formed after bromines and chlorines found in your sanitizers kill organic waste. This is what causes that chlorine odor you have probably smelled at a public swimming pool. When you smell this, you know your hot tub is in need of some shock therapy.
When to Shock your Hot Tub
You should shock your hot tub once a week using a non-chlorine shocker. This is regular hot tub maintenance for your water. You should also regularly sanitize your water as well, which you can find more information about sanitizing here. The more often you use your hot tub and the more people who use it, the more often you should think about shocking. You should also shock your hot tub when you first buy a new hot tub, when you empty and refill water, or when you see algae forming, you notice an odor, or your water is cloudy or dirty looking.
Non-Chlorine Shocking
There are two types of shocking–chlorine and non-chlorine shocking. Non-chlorine shocking is what you should add to your regular weekly hot tub maintenance routine. The major purposes of non-chlorine shock is to oxidize your water, reactivate bromines (if this is a sanitizer you use to clean your water), gets rid of and prevents future cloudiness and foamy water, and removes odor. Non-chlorine shock does not kill bacteria since this is the job of chlorine shock. You can find non-chlorine shock at your nearest Spa Logic location.
Dosage of Shock
How much non-chlorine shock should you add to your hot tub water? Consult your Spa Logic expert team or read the ratio of how much shock to add on the bottle. It will depend on how large your hot tub is and how many people use the hot tub. It also depends on the amount of sanitizers you use.
When to Start Soaking Again
After you add your non-chlorine shock, it is safe to start soaking again 20 minutes later. This makes it very convenient for you if you want to shock your hot tub just before you plan on soaking with others to ensure a clean and clear soak.
