Does adding Baking Soda to increase TA also raise Salt level

[niceguymr]

Today I tested my TA and it was around 60. I figured that I just needed to add a little Sodium Bicarb / Baking Soda to raise it up a bit. Priort to testing my water, the reading on my SWG was 4400 ppm. About an hour after I added the BS, I looked at the SWG and it was reading 6600 ppm.

So then I got to thinking... "Hmm... Sodium Bicarb... SODIUM... hmm... maybe that's why my SWG salt reading went up!" So is this logic correct? Or is there something else at play. I just recently switched from a bleach system to an SWG and have been dealing with issues in calibrating it to give me an accurate Salt content reading, so I'm not sure if this is normal or not.

 

[bk406]

I know it's been posted somewhere before, but i'll say it again. A SWCG does not measure sodium, chloride, or any other chemical in the water. All it measures is the conductivity of the water. When you added a bit of baking soda, it could have likely increased the conductivity of the water for a bit, therefore giving you a high reading on your generator. I;m sure it will go back down. I know you have had it for only a short while and it's natural to worry over the thing. But, really, its not something you need to watch like a boiling kettle. As long as you have adequate chlorine in the water and its doing its job, some ups and downs isnt going to hurt anything. I've seen my pentair SWCG read high when I've added baking soda or even calcium. Give it awhile to settle. Anytime you add chemicals to a pool, it will take a bit for everything to equalize out. Again, dont worry.

 

[chem geek]

First of all, are you sure you wanted to raise your TA level? A higher TA level will usually result in faster carbon dioxide outgassing making the pH rise more quickly and this is a common problem with SWG pools. Is your pH stable at the higher TA?

TA does increase the salt level, adding mostly sodium and bicarbonate ions and these increase the conductivity of the water that the SWG is measuring. However, an increase in TA of 10 ppm is equivalent to an increase in sodium chloride salt of around 2*10*58.443/100.0869 = 11.7 ppm. So the change in your salt reading is just noise and not completely from the TA increase.