Aeration to lower TA, how to?

[mkenyon2]

My TA is 170. I'd like to bring it down a bit.

I put the eyelet back in the return port, and have it angled up, so water is bubbling a bit there. Will this be enough to lower it? My pH is about 7.4 right now.

 

[Butterfly]

Aeration does not lower alkalinity. Aeration raises pH and leaves the TA alone.

MA lowers both TA and pH. Here's the "How To" Pool School article: pool-school/lowering%20total%20alkalinity

 

[anonapersona]

You will want to add muriatic acid to lower the pH to 7.2 then keep aerating to raise the pH up to 7.8 or so and then repeat.

 

[mkenyon2]

Ahh... I had misread that. Thanks. My pH had been low... but I raised it w/ borax. If I had read that correctly, I would have done it a bit different. Live and learn.

 

[itisi]

I need to lower my TA. It is at 220. I have a 20x40 inground with a 10.5 ft deep end. I have tried the aeration but only drop by 10 in 24 hrs. Is there any other way? I have swg and it is at 2800. If I increase salt will this help TA?

 

[PaulR]

Salt won't have any effect on TA. You lower TA by adding acid; but you can't do too much at a time or pH will drop too far (because acid also lowers pH). The article that Butterfly mentioned really does explain it step by step; do what it says.
--paulr

 

[anonapersona]

I need to lower my TA. It is at 220. I have a 20x40 inground with a 10.5 ft deep end. I have tried the aeration but only drop by 10 in 24 hrs. Is there any other way? I have swg and it is at 2800. If I increase salt will this help TA?

You probably ought to start a new topic, so we can all follow you as a separate entity.

Salt has nothing to do with TA. Run the SWG at whatever salt level the directions say to use.

Anyhow, TA is sort of a fine tuning thing. I think this is something you get around to after everything else is under control. You are really more concerned with your pH which is what is important. If your pH tends to rise, you ought to work on lowering the TA. You can do it fast or you can do it slow. It is OK either way.

For example, in my pool the spa overflow runs all the time the filter runs, and the waterfall comes on several times a day. So there is a lot of aeration that causes my pH to rise. And my fill water has TA of 340. So, when the waterfall evaporates a lot of water, I have to add fill water. So TA goes up a bit. So pH goes up a bit more. So I add some Muriatic Acid (MA) nearly every other day when I test. I've decided that I'd rather do it slow than fast. When it gets to 7.8 I lower it to 7.4 or 7.2. I have some decay of the waterfall rocks and I'd rather not accelerate that with low pH water.

So when I add MA, just like you, I get a drop of maybe 10. Early this month TA was 140, now it is 80. It is going down, slowly. I test pH every other day, I add 1 quart to 2 quarts of MA depending on what the Pool Calculator says. No need to hurry.