Alright, as you can see here I got the hot tub running. But there are more problems than just a leak.
The fix a leak product arrived by mail in the afternoon, I read the instructions and also watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to apply it. As instructed, without the filter, I turned on the hot tub to allow circulation and jets. When I plugged it in, for the first time after 4 years of sitting idle, it did turn on right away. Great! And as you can see, there was good flow and the jets, at least the primary ones, seem to be working.
But of course, the second the water was flowing through the pipes, that little drip became a full out gush as predicted. Also, the unit that plugs into the outside outlet ticked loudly. It never did this before, it was also quite hot to the touch. The LED readout made no sense as many of the LEDs were burned out and it was just an indecipherable set of red jumbled LEDs that I think were trying to say 12:00 which makes sense as it's clock would reset to that.
I got on my computer and referenced the PDF manual for this hot tub and tried to do a reset to no avail. I followed the instructions to manually set the temperature and it looked like it was doing it but without knowing what these dashes of red LEDs we're trying to indicate, there's little way of knowing what I might have reset it to. And most alarmingly, the motor kept shutting down every few seconds then it would restart, run for a minute or two, and then shut down again only to repeat the cycle continuously.
Pressing on the buttons for full jets, and mood lights did nothing. Turning the control panel knobs, the large one did regulate jet flow somewhat but the small one did nothing. And water kept pumping up from under the large knob for no reason.
After about an hour from the time when I poured the fix a leak stuff in the filter intake hole, I decided to pull the plug. According to the reviews online, I should have already seen some appreciable reduction in the leak, but I saw no apparent change. I'm supposed to let this keep running for 6 to 8 hours and then keep it off for up to 48 hours to let this fix a leak stuff set. Frankly, I don't think it'll matter one bit.
Whether my leak is more severe than it's designed to handle or it's just bullshit anyway, I don't think it's going to work. Plus with the sketchy electronics and apparently now broken control knobs, not to mention the weird ticking, I don't think I can trust this to run at all. I have a feeling, it's the end of the line.
Now until I run a full filtration with the filter reinstalled in order to extract the remaining fix a leak solution, I can't even use it for any purpose. If I do extract this stuff, shock and balance the water, do I want to risk running the system for a few hours each day to avoid problems of stagnation? All the while still dealing with unsolved leak, soaking this end of my patio with never-ending dampness? Is this worth it?
I'll let it sit for a day, assess the leak, at least the one that I can see, and watch the water level. I'll plug it all back in with the filter installed to get the fix a leak gunk out. I guess I can use the old filter for that and once it's full of the fix a leak stuff, just toss it and put in the new filter for a more thorough clean filtration, I don't know. At this point I'm more inclined to just drain the whole thing again, put the cover back on, and call the operation a mission failure.
Oh well, at least I gave it a shot.