TFPC comes through again! That's what I'm looking for; a chemistry answer. Even though I have a hard time understanding the full chemistry explanation of things, I still get enough understanding to help out my feeble mind.
I guess I started worrying about this for two reasons:
Firstly, I over shot my cya this Spring. I will be more careful in the future. I did not carefully measure out my stabilizer this year (won't happen again), and so I inadvertently raised cya to 60 which I don't like managing FC at this high level, because I have to keep it higher, which has been making it harder to get an accurate PH test. I've been having to let the FC drop to down around the minimum for my cya level to get a good measurement, and I didn't like that, which is compounded by reason two explained below. I could tell that there is no lasting effect on PH from sodium hypochlorite, because, whenever, I'd get my FC down to where I could get an accurate PH result, it was always the same reading. For about six seeks, I had let it sit right about 7.1; just barely below that reddish 7.2 color. The PH went down just a tick after that same overshot dose of CYA. It is not uncommon that I'll drop out of PH range slightly after adding cya, but most-times, it's temporary, and it will recover. I always give it a chance to recover as long as it's just slightly below range. I was giving my PH a chance to recover, but finally adjusted from 7.1-7.3 with borax (TA has been at 50 for three years and I rarely have to mess with PH except for a couple times related to adding stabilizer). Anyway, I hit my PH target exactly, but right about that same time, I started having more issues with my 2nd worry. The other problem listed below seemed to gain steam right after the slight PH addition to put me at the low end of range. I wanted to make sure that it wasn't a mistake to move PH from 7.1-7.3 with the fact that I've been targeting around 8 on FC, and very recently about 10.5. I've ordered a Taylor PH kit, so maybe that will help with the management better since some on here say I can get an accurate measurement up to an FC of 10 using the Taylor kit. Another reason I don't like CYA way up at 60, is at the odd chance that I have to SLAM. It'll be harder and more expensive to manage shock-level FC with CYA at 60, which is what had to happen recently.
The second reason I wanted to know the chemistry about how sodium hypochlorite's affect PH level is that three weeks ago, I slowly came to the realization that I've had a mustard algae outbreak (hopefully gone for good now following Mustard SLAM procedures), I have had it for some time. I had it visibly on the floor for a while last year, and have had the loose grit this whole time, but thought that it was pollen, but when the floor started yellowing again this year (right after I put PH back in range), and that gritty stuff kept coming back, I began researching about this gritty stuff on the bottom that I can vacuum out to waste only to have the same amount showing up three days later. Anyway, I was worried more about letting the FC drop to 5 once I came to this realization, and knew that TFPC teaches that PH tests are valid up to an FC of 10, and that was not my experience, so that's why I asked the question and was pondering that, if PH is actually higher during the entire target period instead of just an invalid test, then I was worried that there was a third reason for keeping CYA below 50. The possibility that running a higher FC level was actually resulting in having a higher average PH level. Anyway, I'll be glad when I get back down to around 40 or below on CYA. Thanks again.