Five tips to help avoid cloudy hot tub water

February 26, 2019 – You head out to the hot tub, weary from your long day and looking forward to that soak in that hot bubbly bliss. You lift the cover off the hot tub and—waaaah! The water’s not looking crystal clear and ready for a soak. What to do?

There are a number of reasons that hot tub water starts to look less than stellar. Here are a few things to consider to keep your water looking perfect.

• Keep your water balanced. WAY too often we talk to customers about their water care and find out they rarely test their water. Yikes! I don’t know about you, but I think we hear enough stories in the news about how much harder it is to keep disease at bay and develop antibiotics to conquer them. Why put yourself into hot tub water that’s not properly balanced?? Balanced water allows your sanitizer avoid getting destroyed by low pH, leaving it available to kill the crud we leave behind after a soak. Test strips are inexpensive and take seconds to use.
• Don’t introduce extra “stuff” into the water. It’s a bore to think about showering before a soak, and often it’s unnecessary. BUT—if you’re someone who wears a lot of lotion, makeup, or hair product, all those things can not only make your water cloudy, it can also cause significant foaming in the water. At the very least, taking some of that off with makeup remover will help alleviate the chance those products could impact your water’s clarity.
• Sanitize your tub’s water after every soak. Again, I’m always shocked at how many folks tell me they go out for a hot tub, soak, and then DON’T add anything to kill bacteria when they’re done! Here’s a newsflash: Every time we humans go into a hot tub for a soak, we leave “crap” in the water. You must add something after soaking to kill any bacteria/germs left behind! This is not an option—it’s a requirement as a responsible hot tub user. Be sure you set yourself (and others!) up for safe soaking every time. Sanitize!
• Regularly clean your filters. Your filters are key to the cleaning equation of your hot tub and have a significant impact on water clarity. Filters should be cleaned monthly—and not just by rinsing them with a garden hose. You need to use a filter cleaner to degrease the sleeves of the filter and make sure those sleeves are able to properly clean and filter your tub’s water. Filters should also be replaced every couple of years. Limping along with old filters that can’t keep up with cleaning your tub’s water properly is not a smart idea. Safe clean water requires good clean filters.
• Regularly add clarifier. Adding a weekly dose of clarifier is an excellent way to help keep your water looking crystal clear. Clarifier works at binding up anything that can make your water cloudy and getting it captured by your filters, leaving your water sparkling. We like Natural Chemistry’s Clarify, as it’s non-toxic and organic.

Take the necessary steps to keep your water looking terrific! That way, when you head out to the tub to take that all important soak, you’ll be able to breathe a sigh of relief and say “Aaaahh!” when you step into the tub instead of “Waaaah!” when you lift the lid.