GETTING
STARTED

Start With Better Water

Tap water is far from pure. It often contains dissolved calcium, iron, copper, and other contaminants that can lead to scaling, colored water, and increased sanitizer demand.

That’s why the X10 Filter® was developed—a hose prefilter that removes these impurities before they enter your spa. The result? Purer, better water from the start.
The X10 goes beyond typical filtration by using a patented ion exchange process that alters contaminants at the molecular level—transforming them into harmless compounds. For example, calcium is converted into aragonite, a non-clinging form that doesn’t cause scale buildup or clog water features.
No matter the water source, the X10 Filter helps you start with better water, which will be easier to manage and maintain. Each filter treats a minimum of 10,000 gallons and is reusable. www.X10Filter.com

Use Spa Marvel®

Spa Marvel is a naturally derived enzyme formulation that will allow you to operate your spa with fewer chemicals. As an example, Spa Marvel’s enzymes do some of the work that your chlorine would otherwise do. For example, if it takes X amount of chlorine to maintain a specific chlorine reading when not using Spa Marvel, it will take less than X chlorine to maintain the same reading when you are using Spa Marvel.

You will be able to shock less frequently, you don’t need to use stain and scale control, Spa Marvel helps to prevent foaming and scum lines, improves filtration, clarifies water, and leaves your skin feeling soft and supple, so much so, that people with conditions like eczema and psoriasis often find that using it helps to improve their condition. And Spa Marvel helps to maintain your spa while it is not being used during extended absences, even if that is for weeks or months on end.

One bottle of Spa Marvel treats all spas up to 500 gallons (2,000 litres) for 3 months, and a swim spa for 1 month. www.SpaMarvel.com

HOW TO USE
SPA MARVEL

The instructions below are for use in a brand new spa. If using Spa Marvel in an existing spa, begin with Step 2, then proceed to Step 1.

Step 1 – Initial Fill

• Fill spa as per your spa manufacturer’s directions. If using well water or poor quality source water, use of a hose prefilter such as the X10 Filter (www.X10Filter.com) is strongly recommended.
• Heat water to desired temperature.
• Add 1 full bottle of Spa Marvel Water Treatment & Conditioner® (Spa Marvel). For optimal results, program the spa to filter a minimum of 6 hours a day if possible. Spas with low-volume circulation/hush pumps should be programmed to filter a minimum of 18 hours a day (24 hours a day is preferred).
• Add sanitizer as per your professional spa retailer’s guidelines. (see page 8)
• Balance water if and as required (see page 4)
  • Alkalinity to between 80 and 150 ppm, and ideally to between 120 and 150 ppm
  • pH to between 7.2 and 8.4
  • Calcium Hardness to between 150 and 250 ppm

Add 1 full bottle of Spa Marvel Water Treatment & Conditioner to your spa every 3 months, and to a swim spa once a month.

Step 2 – Using Spa Marvel Cleanser®

• In a brand new spa, your first water change should occur after no more than 90 days of use.
• Open all jets.
• Remove filters. You will not harm your tub by operating it with the filters out.
• Pour 1 bottle of Spa Marvel Cleanser into the existing water (add 3 bottles to a swim spa). Turn pumps on high for at least 1 hour. If the spa is less than 3 months old, or if Spa Marvel Water Treatment & Conditioner has been used in the existing water, drain the spa after 1 hour. Otherwise, leave the Cleanser in the water for at least another 23 hours on the regular filtration cycles. It is okay to leave Spa Marvel Cleanser in the water for more than 23 hours if need be. Drain the spa, rinse it out and refill as per manufacturer’s directions. Repeat before every water change.

Note: Do not use the spa when using Spa Marvel Cleanser.

The three main components to water balance are:
alkalinity, pH and hardness

Testing Water Balance

There are 4 common ways to test your water balance.

1. TEST STRIPS The most commonly used and fastest method is to use test strips. These strips use litmus paper that is dipped into the water and then matched against a colour legend to determine different readings. Most strips test for the basics: pH, alkalinity and free sanitizer. Some will test for more including total chlorine and hardness. Test strips have a shelf life; ensure that the test strips have not expired.
2. TITRATION This is where drops of a reagent are added to a water sample and the corresponding colours are compared to a chart to determine the readings. The reagents used in titration have an expiry date; ensure that the reagents have not expired.
3. ELECTRONIC TESTINGThere are several electronic testing devices available.
4. WATER LAB TESTING These tests are typically done at a professional spa retailer who is equipped with high-tech equipment to analyze

Alkalinity & pH

Alkalinity is what keeps your water’s pH in proper range. pH is the measurement of how acidic or basic your water is. pH that is too high or too low can be problematic.

Once the alkalinity is in range, then check the pH, and adjust it, if necessary, using pH increaser or pH reducer, as per the directions on the package.

If there isn’t enough calcium in your water (the water is soft), it can make it more difficult to maintain your alkalinity and pH readings, you can experience excessive foaming, and the water may feel sticky on your skin.

If calcium hardness is too high (the water is hard), it can create scaling in your hot tub, similar to the white scale build-up you see in shower heads and tea kettles. The good news is that Spa Marvel does a great job at preventing scale build up from forming, so you do not need to worry about hard water when using Spa Marvel. Additionally, if you fill your spa using the X10 Filter, the X10 will alter calcium in the water to a form that doesn’t cause scaling.

Calcium hardness should be between 150-250 ppm. To increase calcium hardness, use calcium hardness increaser. There is no easy way to lower calcium hardness in spa water. If you are not using Spa Marvel as part of your water care regimen, consider using a stain and scale control product from your professional spa retailer to help to combat the effects of high calcium hardness.

If you can, fill your spa with soft water from a water softener, then increase the calcium hardness to the 150-250 ppm range with calcium hardness increaser.

One tablespoon (15 grams) of calcium hardness increaser will raise hardness about 10 ppm in 250 gallons (1,000 litres) of water.

To maintain a biologically safe environment for bathers, hot tub water requires mechanisms to kill and prevent the growth of bacteria and other pathogens. The products used to do this are known as sanitizers. The most common sanitizers are chlorine and bromine.

Spa Marvel does some of the work that chlorine and bromine can do, but Spa Marvel does not sanitize; it doesn’t attack and kill bacteria the way a sanitizer does. Rather it naturally removes the food necessary for bacteria to live. This is, in part, how aquariums and lakes can maintain themselves without needing a sanitizer added to them.

Since Spa Marvel is doing some of the work that chlorine and bromine would otherwise do, it will take less chlorine or bromine to maintain the desired readings when using Spa Marvel, than when not.

It is generally recommended to maintain sanitizer readings between 3-5 ppm in residential spa ap-plications. There are so many variables in spa water care that it is impossible to prescribe an exact amount of sanitizer to use, but when using Spa Marvel, a good rule of thumb (your actual needs may vary) for adding chlorine or bromine granules is to use the ratio of 4 teaspoons per 250 gallons of water (20 grams per 1,000 litres) on the initial fill, and then add 1 teaspoon (5 grams) to the water each time you are finished using the hot tub. If you are using chlorine or bromine in a tablet form, using 2 tablets a week in the dispenser is a good place to start. Your professional spa retailer can provide you with the best product and form of sanitizer to use. Please maintain sanitizer readings as per local regulatory agencies’ guidelines.

NOTE:
When adding chemicals to your spa water, follow the directions on the package.

Absentee Spa Owners

Spa Marvel is a favorite amongst absentee spa owners: people like cottagers and vacation home owners whose spas are not being used and who may not be available to add sanitizer for weeks or months on end. Spa Marvel will maintain the water during their absence, even though no sanitizer has been added.

If you are using Spa Marvel as part of your water care program and are planning an extended absence, we recommend:

• Installing a properly-cleaned filter.
• Ensuring that alkalinity is 120-150 ppm.
• Adding chlorine or bromine at the ratio of 4 teaspoons per 250 gallons of water (20 grams per 1,000 litres) or a single tablet of bromine/chlorine to your dispenser.
• Leave the lid open for at least 30 minutes.
• Close the lid.
• Enjoy your time away.

When you return, your water ought to be pristine; add sanitizer if and as required, and carry on.

Effects of Sanitizer on Alkalinity

As sanitizers such as chlorine and bromine are added to the water, they turn to acid. The acid will lower your alkalinity, which will cause the pH to drop, making the water acidic. It is important to check your alkalinity reading on a regular basis to ensure that it is in the ideal range, and to adjust it as required. If you don’t, as time goes on the water will become more acidic and cause increased sanitizer consumption, foamy water, damage to the spa’s equipment, and bather discomfort including itching and rashes.
 

Free, Combined and Total Chlorine

When you add chlorine to the water, it is called free, or available, chlorine, because it is free and available to break down contaminants.

Once it has combined with a contaminant and has done its work, it converts to a form called combined chlorine, because it has combined with something and broken it down (combined chlorine is often referred to as a chloramine). If you add free chlorine and combined chlorine together, the sum is known as total chlorine.

Combined chlorine doesn’t sanitize your water, it just sits around and gives off that ‘chlorine smell’ that people complain of and can cause itchy skin, rashes and burning eyes. A properly balanced spa should not have any combined chlorine nor any chlorine odours. As another example, when you walk into a public pool and smell the “chlorine smell” and think “wow, they have a lot of chlorine in the water”, the opposite is true, it’s combined chlorine (chloramines) that you smell, not fresh, free chlorine.

Bromine behaves in the same way, and converts to combined bromine.

To rid your spa of combined chlorine/combined bromine, you need to shock your water.

Shocking the Water

“Shocking” is the term used to describe the addition of a large amount of an oxidizing agent to your spa water. The oxidizing agents will break down the combined chlorine (or combined bromine) which will clear any chlorine odours permeating from your water. The oxidizing agent also breaks down contaminants that cause other odours and that are too small to be filtered out of the spa water, which can cause hazy water.

Oxidizing agents include non-chlorine shock, bromine and chlorine (in other words, if you smell chlorine, adding more chlorine will take the smell away).

When combined chlorine is oxidized (broken down) by the shock, it is converted to a gas that needs to be expelled into the atmosphere, and as such you ought to leave the spa’s lid open for 30-60 minutes after shocking.

You should shock your water when there is an accumulation of combined chlorine, which can be detected by a chlorine odour, and can also be determined with some test kits and test strips. If your test strips have parameters for both free and total chlorine, combined chlorine is calculated by subtracting free chlorine from total chlorine. Ideally you want your free chlorine to equal total chlorine, which would mean that you have zero combined chlorine.

Most spa users don’t test for combined chlorine, and we understand that it can be confusing. You won’t go wrong simply shocking your water once a week by adding chlorine or bromine granules to the water at the ratio of 4 teaspoons per 250 gallons of water (20 grams per 1,000 litres), or if the water is in any way not crystal-clear, increase the dosage to 2 tablespoons per 250 gallons of water (30 grams per 1,000 litres). If you are using a non-chlorine shock, follow the directions on the package.

It is acceptable to shock the water more frequently if necessary. For example, if the spa has had a large bather load and the water isn’t crystal clear, shock the water to help to get everything cleared more quickly.

Clarifier

Sometimes contaminants can be introduced to the water that are so fine that they pass through the filter and stay in suspension, leaving the water looking hazy. If a clean filter and shocking the water will not remove these contaminants, then using a water clarifying product from your professional spa retailer will help. The clarifier sequesters the fine particles that are causing the haze and clumps them together so that they become a larger particle and can get trapped in the filter media.

Clean filter cartridges are essential to successful spa water care. Your filters capture debris introduced by bathers such as hairspray, makeup, deodorant, perfume, lotions and creams, along with human waste including body oils, sweat, and residual urine, feces, mucous and blood.

A Key Thing To Remember
Filters aren’t magic — even a brand-new filter can get overwhelmed quickly.

If a bather covered in sunscreen uses the spa on day one, that residue can clog the tiny openings in the filter fabric. The filter may still look clean, but it won’t perform, and your water can turn cloudy.

In that case, adding more shock or clarifier won’t solve the root issue — a dirty filter will keep water cloudy.

The Right Way To Clean A Filter
If your current method is simply rinsing with water, that’s a bit like washing your hair without shampoo — it may look okay briefly, but it isn’t truly clean.

A better approach:

Some people carefully use a pressure washer to speed up rinsing, but use common sense — pressure washers can damage filter fabric. A coin-operated car wash sprayer is a good alternative.

A Simple Routine That Works For Most Owners

Weekly: Quick rinse with fresh water.

Monthly: Proper deep clean (soak + strong rinse)

After heavy use: Rinse again

Your filter can never be too clean — and it’s much easier to keep a filter clean than to restore a neglected one.

When To Replace Filters

Filters don’t last forever. Even if they look fine, they wear out and can allow more debris to pass through over time.

A good rule of thumb:

Replace after 1 year of use or about a dozen deep cleanings, whichever comes first.

Lastly, not all filters are created equally. A high-quality filter recommended by your professional spa retailer will typically perform better and help maintain clearer water longer.

CHANGING THE WATER

As chemicals are added to spa water, the water becomes more saturated. It is a good practice to replace your spa water every three months. When using Spa Marvel, you are using fewer chemicals than in traditional spa water care, so if a situation arose where the spa water could not be changed at the three month point (maybe the weather is too cold to permit a water change), simply add another bottle of Spa Marvel to the existing water and carry on for another 3 months.

In a swim spa, use one bottle of Spa Marvel per month, and change the water as frequently as your professional spa retailer recommends.

A plumbing cleaner such as Spa Marvel Cleanser should be used prior to each water change.

NOTE:
Follow local discharge bylaws when draining.

ALWAYS SHOWER BEFORE USING

Four people in a hot tub is equivalent to 200 people in a swimming pool. The bather load in a spa is tremendous. If you don’t shower thoroughly before using the spa, you are using it as a bath tub. Hairspray, makeup, deodorant, perfume, cologne, gel, detergents/soap, lotions, and creams are introduced to the water. Those are on top of the sweat, body oil and residual human waste (fecal matter, urine and blood) that often accompanies bathers into the water. This is hard on the water, your water treatment chemicals and your filter. By showering THOROUGHLY before using your spa, your water quality will improve, you will spend less time caring for your filters, and your life will be much better.

USE PROPER PRODUCTS

Do not use vinegar and bleach to maintain water balance, those products are for French fries and laundry, not hot tubs. Use products designed for hot tub care; you will find a high-er-quality product when buying from a professional spa retailer than you will when buying from a big-box store. Lower quality products may cause excessive foaming and lead to more frequent water changes. Do not use essential oils, tea-tree oil and other products not designed for hot tub use as they often gum up the filters and cause cloudy water and foam.

CONSIDER A REFILL
INSTEAD OF CHEMICALS

Water is inexpensive. The cost of municipally supplied water in North America is about 1.5 cents per gallon, including the wastewater charge. That translates to a cost of just $6 to fill a 400-gallon spa. So if you have a huge party in your spa and the water is a mess afterwards, consider just dumping and refilling the tub, the cost of replacing the water is a lot less than trying to add chemicals to save the water.

ENSURE YOUR SPA HAS SUFFICIENT FILTRATION

Most spas come from the factory pre-programmed to filter water for 4 hours a day, and some with as little as 1 hour a day. This is not sufficient. If you program your spa to filter 6, or even 8 hours a day, you will use fewer chemicals and have much better water quality. If your spa is equipped with a low-volume hush pump (sometimes called a circ pump), it is designed to filter 24/7, and if it does not come programmed this way, program it to do so as per the instructions in your owner’s manual.

One might think that it would cost a lot more for electricity to increase the filtration times, but consider this:

The average electricity cost in North America is 12 cents per kilowatt hour. That means that if a 1-horsepower pump runs for 1 hour, it uses 12 cents of electricity. If you filter water 6 hours a day, versus 4 hours a day, you are spending an extra 24 cents a day on electricity, or $7.30 a month. But in reality you are spending less, because much of the waste heat created by the pump motor is transferred to the water, which will heat the water,

which means your spa’s large electric heating element doesn’t turn on as often as it otherwise would, and as a result uses less electricity, which will save money. The savings from decreased demand on the heater don’t fully offset the increased cost of running the pumps for longer times, but they come close.

If you are using a circ pump/hush pump, they are typically a 1/5 horse-power motor, which means that they use 1 kilowatt of energy every five hours. To run one of these pumps 24/7, based on the aforementioned numbers, you’re spending 58 cents a day on electricity, less than $18 a month, less what’s offset due to the heater turning on less frequently.

Increasing your filtration is not expensive and will improve your water quality while decreasing chemical demand.

The cost to heat a freshly-filled spa is negligible. A typical spa holds 400 gallons of water and has a 5 kW heat-er. At 12 cents a kWh, it costs 60 cents an hour to operate the heater. The heater usually raises the temperature at the rate of 7 degrees an hour. Filling the spa with 55 degree water, and raising it to 104 degrees will take 7 hours to heat. Seven hours at 60 cents an hour is $4.20 to heat the spa.

ASK FOR HELP

This is a basic guide to water care. If you’re unsure of anything, or if you encounter something out of the ordinary, consult your professional spa retailer for more advice. You can also check out the resources available at SpaMarvel.com/Water-Wizard.