It's time to get your hot tub ready to use, and that means adding a dose of hot tub chemicals. Adding the right chemicals in the right order can prevent cloudy water, slimy surfaces and nasty hot tub smells luckily all the chemicals you need to start up. Your hot tub are the same ones that you need to maintain it throughout the year. So here's what you need to know about hot tub, startup chemicals and how to add them.

Let's dive in real quick before we continue. If you want more help taking care of your hot tub be sure to grab our free hot tub cheat sheet at swimuniversity.com spa sheet, it's totally free and will help keep your hot tub clean and clear throughout the year. Now, before you start adding any chemicals to your spa, you'll want to know how many gallons your hot tub holds. This will help you add the correct amount of chemicals to your hot tub.

You can find your hot tub's volume or water capacity in your owner's manual or with a quick google search. So how do you add chemicals to your hot tub? Water you'll, be adding chemicals directly to the spa water, so measure out your chemicals and then add them. One at a time to the surface of your hot tub, water wait at least 20 minutes or until the chemical is completely dissolved before adding the next chemical. Keep your jets running and your air valves turned off to help your chemicals evenly and quickly.

Disperse you'll also want to keep your cover off your hot tub, so chemicals like chlorine can off gas. Finally, whenever handling chemicals, use, gloves goggles and a mask and keep your chemicals separate before adding them to your hot tub. Mixing chemicals outside of your water can be dangerous and less effective. What type of chemicals do you need for your hot tub? You'll want to have the following chemicals on hand to start up and maintain your hot tub, alkalinity increaser or baking, soda ph, increaser, ph decreaser sanitizer like chlorine or bromine, calcium, harness increaser and a metal sequestrant or stain scale preventer if needed.

Now. It's time to add chemicals to your spa. Here's the step-by-step sequence that we recommend when adding hot tub chemicals. First test your hot tub water.

You won't know what chemicals to add in what order, if you don't know your water chemistry use test strips to measure your alkalinity ph and sanitizer levels in your spa water. If this is your very first time filling up your hot tub, you may also want to test your water for calcium or metals like copper and iron. You'll need to buy a more comprehensive liquid testing kit or bring a water sample to your local, hot tub or pool supply store. Filling up.

Your hot tub with a hose filter can help remove impurities like metals and calcium before they get into your spa. When you test your water, you want to test for the following levels: alkalinity, which should be between 100 and 150 parts per million ph, which should be between 7.4 and 7.6 chlorine, which should be between 1 and 3 parts per million, with 3 parts per million being Ideal, if you use bromine, your bromine levels should be between three and five parts per million. And if you have a mineral sanitizer, your chlorine level should be at 0.5 parts per million and your bromine levels at one part per million. Next heat up your spa until the water temperature reaches 80 degrees, fahrenheit or 30 degrees celsius, the hot water will disperse your chemicals more effectively.

Remember to turn on your jets, turn off your air valves and keep your cover off of your hot tub. Finally, it's time to add your chemicals one at a time waiting at least 20 minutes in between each chemical before retesting number one add your metal sequestration or stain and scale preventer, if necessary, this neutralizes metals in the water before they can stain your hot tub or Harm your equipment number two adjust your alkalinity and ph your ph helps your sanitizer work more effectively and alkalinity helps prevent fluctuations in ph. So it's important to adjust this level first alkalinity and ph go hand in hand, so adjusting one can affect the other. That's why it's important to add your chemicals one at a time and wait for them to dissolve then retest, your water and remember, you can always add more, so don't overdo it.

If you need to raise your alkalinity, you can use an alkalinity, increaser or baking soda. If you need to lower your alkalinity, you can actually use a ph decreaser. There is no such thing as alkalinity decreaser. Just remember, ph, decreaser will also lower your ph levels.

If you need to raise your ph, add a ph increaser. If you need to lower your ph, add a ph decreaser and after adding each chemical, let them circulate for at least 20 minutes and then retest your water. If you're having issues adjusting these levels be sure to check out our other videos about balancing your ph and alkalinity number, three adjust your sanitizer levels like chlorine or bromine. Now is the time to add your chlorine, granules or bromine directly to the water.

You can also use bromine tablets in a floating dispenser system, as always start with a smaller amount of sanitizer test. Your water and add more if necessary, bromine does not dissolve as quickly as chlorine, so you'll need to wait a bit longer to retest these levels and, if you're using bromine tablets in a floater, this can take several days to disperse in your water. Before you get a proper reading, if you're using chlorine to sanitize your hot tub, we recommend using dichlor granules over trichlor tablets. It's easier to control your dosing with granulars compared to tablets and trichlor can damage your hot tub's acrylic.

Shell number four adjust your calcium, hardness levels. These levels do more damage in the long run like eroding parts in your hot tub, so you can wait until your water is sanitized and balanced before adjusting your calcium hardness. Your calcium, harness levels should be between 175 and 250 parts per million. If you need to raise your levels, add calcium, hardness, increaser.

If your calcium, hardness levels are too high, the best solution is to drain your hot tub, scrub it and start over with fresh filtered water. Finally, you do not need to add any shock right after filling your hot tub shock, helps, kill contaminants and remove compounds that build up over time like chloramines and bromines, because your hot tub is full of fresh water. You don't have any buildup of contaminants, so you don't need to shock right away. You can add a non-chlorine shock once a week when your hot tub is in use.

This will help refresh your sanitizer levels. You can use a chlorine shock if you're experiencing issues with your hot tub like cloudy water or algae, or if your hot tub is in high use and if you need more help, maintaining your hot tub grab our free hot tub cheat sheet at swimuniversity.com spa sheet. If you found this video helpful leave a comment hit the like button and subscribe for more hot tub maintenance tutorials. That's it thanks again and happy soaking.