testing Alkalinity

[Danmickread]

Hi, i have a palintest tablet count kit for ta which seemed to be ok when the ta was higher. it was around 90 but my ph kept rising so kept adding a little more acid. now that ph seems to have stabilized i don't know what the ta is because when i add just one tablet it goes to light pink straight away and as i add more tablets it just gets darker. it is supposed to start yellow and then turn deep pink. so im guessing this is because the ta is low but i don't know how low. has anyone got one of these kits and got any suggestions?
Does anyone have any experience with the palintest cool pooltester? This is a budget photometer and i wondered if these are accurate and would solve my problem. these are supposed to be able to measure ta between 10-500 ppm. would this be in increments of 10 as well.
Thank
Dan

 

[257WbyMag]

I'm not familiar with the Palintest kit but I am going to bump your thread here just to see if anyone else can offer a suggestion.

 

[chem geek]

It sounds like the TA is close to 0, but I don't know how close since I don't know the Palintest kit well. I'd have at least some TA in the water, but you don't need very much if the pH tends to rise over time or is otherwise stable. The TA mostly protects you from the pH crashing, but if you are using hypochlorite sources of chlorine then that won't happen. Only net acidic sources of chlorine could cause the pH to crash (mostly Trichlor, but Dichlor can as well).