The spectra is remarkably durable. At the
price, they should be. I have had mine for 19 years and most of that time it was sitting idle - but with the
storage solution inside, and renewed every two years or so.
I'm sure the Spectra techs will help you with firing up and running your Spectra. My suggestions below are only offered as a preview.
When you are running any fresh
water or solutions, do not use normal tap
water unless you have run it though a carbon filter, or use distilled water.
You may find some
leaks in the system. Before bothering to chemically clean the system or check for fresh water output, follow directions specific to your model for starting it up but using just fresh non-chlorinated water at the intake. First make sure the low pressure pump(s) are running. Then check it all carefully for
leaks. I bought a Clark
pump seal kit and
solved some leaks in the Clark oump and I bought a new low-pressure
pump to replace one of the originals that had been corroded due to a small leak I had not noticed.
Salt water not good for
electric motors!
After you fix any leaks you can run a
cleaning cycle. Spectra has two different chemical solutions, one for
cleaning and one for
storage. Get them from most chandleries. Go online to get the directions for how to run a cleaning cycle.
If the cleaning cycle shows no major amount of discoloration in the solution, and after
flushing thoroughly with fresh water, you can finally try it with
salt water input - but only if you are in clean ocean water. If not you can mix up your own
salt water equivalent in a bucket. Direct the brine output back into the same bucket for re-cycling. Run it 10 minutes then check for taste and smell. You should get a TDS meter and use that as well. You want less than 700PPM but Spectra usually runs less than 300PPM.