Balancing Cold Water

[marcames11]

I have a 2 month old pool, completed in October. I live in the South East and will keep the pool open (technically), as my spa is located inside the pool. I'm trying to balance water that has a temperature of about 48 degrees and am having trouble keeping the LSI under -.50. At ideal PH (7.5), Akl (100), and Hardness (180) the LSI is -.60.

Which of the three attributes should I try and raise, if any? PH? Akl? Hardness?

 

[zea3]

Hi, welcome to TFP! If your pool has a plaster finish then your calcium level needs to be 250 ppm. If you have a vinyl or fiberglass pool 180 would be fine. What are you using to test the water?

 

[marcames11]

It's plaster, but even at 250 the LSI is -.25. How would one go about about getting it lower than that at a water temp of 48 degrees?

 

[dmanb2b]

Welcome to TFP. You can play around with the values on poolcalculator.com. I would think CSI of -.25 is just fine.

 

[chem geek]

Unless you have metals in the water, you can have the pH be higher, say around 7.8. Colder water will naturally have a higher pH, all else equal. Usually you have the CH for a plaster pool be around 300 ppm or so.