This is an indoor spa originally put in when the house was built in 1986. It hadn't run in a few years and when we filled it up it had a leak. We had a guy come out and replace all the plumbing and put an ozonator in. The problem is that the jets won't start flowing again after they are turned off. I have to turn off the power, close the valve on the suction side, fill the container on the suction side of the pump to the top with water, turn the power back on, wait a few seconds for the pump to kick on and open the valve. The guy that did the work for us said that this was because air was leaking in. He sealed all the joints but no help. The pump is higher than the wafer level of the tub which he said made it hard for suction to get going, but it worked before! Any ideas or tricks to make this work??

I would think the pump would need to be below water line IMHO. Otherwise you will have priming problems