Need help

[Poolfool123456]

Decided this year to understand my vinyl pool.
We had been shocking and using tabs to maintain the pool, but the water never felt right and we had repeated algae outbreaks.
We had another algea outbreak this year and we decided to make some changes.
I have been using test strips and I will be acquiring a kit.
Originally I had zero ta, zero cya, and my ph was low enough to not even register....
I added 4 pounds of mule borax, 15 pounds of baking soda and 6 pounds of ash soda.
I have been using Clorox and have been able to maintain FC and tc without much issue.
NOW.. cya is 20, ta is 80, BUT ph is so low it still doesn't register and the low value is 6.2 :x
I have been aerating the pool for about 8 hours now and the ph still isn't registering.
Sooooo how do I raise the ph, don't want to add soda ash because the ta is right.

 

[linen]

Welcome to tfp, Poolfool123456

The test strips are really not trustworthy, though they are usually close on ph. I would continue to use Borax to raise you ph until you get up to at least 7.0. You can deal with the rise in TA later...it is more important to have ph above 7 then it is not increase TA.

 

[JohnN]

When you say acquiring a kit, you mean the TF-100 or K-2006, right? Anyway, welcome, and soon you will have to change your name to PoolExpert123456.

 

[Poolfool123456]

Yes the Taylor kit.
Though I haven't gotten the ph correct the water absolutely feels so much better to swim in. And it must not be far off ph wise because it isn't burning my eyes...
I bought 8.75% Clorox bleach to raise the chlorine level in my 15000 gallon pool. How much bleach to raise the level by 1ppm? My understanding is that this will not change the ph, please correct me if I am wrong.
If I add borax at what do I need to start worrying about borate levels?
At least I am learning the questions to ask....but no expert yet lol

 

[JohnN]

The Pool Calculator can answer all of your current questions. It takes a lot of Borax to raise borates (10 boxes for a 13,500 gal pool.) You don't really have anything to worry about there. Play with the effects of adding chemicals down at the bottom so see what Borax will do. Does all of what I said make sense? Sometimes I don't even understand myself.

 

[Poolfool123456]

Thanks John, for some reason the pool calculator isn't working...

 

[Butterfly]

Thanks John, for some reason the pool calculator isn't working...

hum, try the link in my sig

 

[JohnN]

That's strange, it works for me.

 

[Poolfool123456]

Got it to work, will take at least 10 boxes of mule borax.
I think it got overlooked but using Clorox will not raise the pool ph? Added it tonight for the first time and it worked great. The pool is so much easier to manage already.
This forum is fantastic thanks for your help!!!

 

[jblizzle]

Bleach is effectively pH neutral. It will raise the pH at first but as the FC is consumed the pH drops.