Oh no, is your hot tub water cloudy? What should you do? Let totallyhottubs answer your question “Why is my hot tub water cloudy” and explain what to do..
So you have had a busy day at work, you come home excited to chill in your hot tub.
You strip off, bathing gear goes on, maybe you pour yourself a little tipple, or at least something to hydrate you if you are being very sensible, then when you lift the lid of your hot tub you see some filthy, cloudy water which you cannot see through to the bottom of your hot tub. Hopefully, there is not a bear in it!
You sigh and say to yourself:
“Why is the water in my hot tub cloudy?”
Let’s look into this, and then, perhaps more importantly, give you the solution to fix it!
Why Is My Hot Tub Water Cloudy?
There are a couple of common causes:
- You haven’t kept a check on your chlorine or bromine chemical levels, so bacteria has taken hold in the water and the water needs a shock and rebalancing; and/or
- You have had people using your hot tub who had a lot of make up, soaps, hairspray or gels, or other chemicals on them which has interefered with the balance of the water.
If it is the first one, you will definitely not be able to use your hot tub until you get your chlorine or bromine levels up to the correct level.
If it is the latter, you may be able to use your hot tub but you might choose not to until you have carried out a hot tub shock (chemical or otherwise).
How To See Why Your Hot Tub Is Cloudy?
First things first, find your hot tub test strips of choice, follow the instructions on the side of the bottle to the letter (we often find that people never read these instructions, then they wonder why their results are not what they would hope, so do read them carefully – they are all slightly different).
Once you have carried out the test as instructed for your hot tub test strips, do you have too much or too little bromide or chlorine in your hot tub, or is your PH or Alkaline level too high or too low?
Depending what the cause of the cloudy water is will depend on the action that you need to take.
Chlorine Or Bromide Levels Too Low Making Your Water Cloudy
You will need to add your preferred chlorine or bromine granuals. Ideally you will use granuals rather than tablets as you will be able to get the levels up more quickly this way. If you only have tablets, you can throw them straight into the water and leaver your hot tub water pumps on to dissolve them as quickly as possible, but it might take an extra day or two before the water clears over the use of granules.
You should also then carry out either a non chlorine shock or a chlorine shock to bring the water back.
If you use a chlorine shock, you effectively put a lot of chlorine into the water to kill any bacteria (read the instructions on the side of your granules for how much to put in based on the volume of water in your hot tub).
You will then have to wait two or three days for the chlorine levels to drop back down to the allowed level suggested on your hot tub test strips.
We know that is a shame, but you do not want to subject your skin to very high levels of chlorine, or your eyes for that matter. That really will not be good for you!
PH Or Alkaline Levels Too Low Making The Water Cloud?
Lower PH or Alkaline levels, or higher ones, are unlikely to make the water cloudy on their own, but you should still be maintaining them to within the correct perimiters suggested by your testing strips.
Use the PH Increaser or Decreaser to bring them back to the right levels, and the same for the Alkaline levels.
How To Stop Your Hot Tub Water Becoming Cloudy Again
At totallyhottubs, we have found the easiest, most cost effective way to maintain and avoid cloudy hot tub water is to use a slow dispensing container with chlorine or bromide tabs in (whichever is your chemical of choice).
So long as you set the level right (more open if using the hot tub daily, less open if weekly), the hot tub water levels will stay steady and the water will not go cloudy.
This is our preferred weapon of choice:
