Heavy Rain Effected Levels

[MM32]

Hello,
I finally had my TA and pH at acceptable levels after being extremely high at the beginning of the season. Last week we had a crazy rain storm in the northeast and I had to drain 9” of water from my pool 2x to avoid overflowing. I also had to backwash yesterday and recharge my DE filter. Needless to say, I need to add some chemicals to my pool now.
I know I need to add calcium hardness increaser for my heater (already have), and CYA. My TA is now at 50. I’m hesitant to add baking soda but maybe I shouldn’t be. My fill water has a TA of 100 and I added about 3” of fill water yesterday expecting my TA to rise and it is still at 50.
Should I raise my TA today? If so, is it acceptable to use regular old baking soda or should I buy soda ash or something different?
Last question: if I use liquid stabilizer, do I need to run my filter 24hours? I’ve been using dry stabilizer all year because it’s much cheaper but I don’t really want to run my filter 24 hours today if I don’t have to.
As always, any help is much appreciated, thanks!
Mike

 

[PoolStored]

TA of 50 is just fine. If you have evaporation, your fill will help. If it falls to 40, then raise with baking soda. Do not use soda ash to raise TA.

If you use liquid stabilizer, run your pump for 6 hours or so is fine. Make sure you rinse the bottle and get all the material out of the bottle.

 

[MM32]

TA of 50 is just fine. If you have evaporation, your fill will help. If it falls to 40, then raise with baking soda. Do not use soda ash to raise TA.

If you use liquid stabilizer, run your pump for 6 hours or so is fine. Make sure you rinse the bottle and get all the material out of the bottle.

Thank you! The reason I was going to add baking soda is because my heater manual recommends a csi of +0.5/-0.5. According to pool math, raising my TA a little would put me in line, recognizing the at I also have to add some cya (which appears to lower my csi significant even though I didn’t think it had an impact). Otherwise I have to raise my calcium hardness by 100ppm to get in range which is significantly more expensive. All things considered, would you still say not to add baking soda? Thanks for your help.

 

[PoolStored]

We recommend, if you have a heater to have 200 CH. I'd raise the CH to 200. Then if you still want/need to raise your CSI, raise TA to 60.

 

[pjt]

My TA is now at 50. I’m hesitant to add baking soda but maybe I shouldn’t be. My fill water has a TA of 100.

Should I raise my TA today?

TA of 50 is perfectly fine. Under normal circumstances, a non-trichlor pool should never need baking soda.

For the TA test, are you continuing to add drops until there's no additional color change?

Don't add baking soda, especially since every time you add fill water you're slightly increasing the TA. Obviously, be judicious with any MA additions (you probably won't need any MA for a while).

 

[MM32]

For the TA test I add drops until it turns red. If it’s that greenish/greyish/in between color I usually have to add 1 more drop to get it to turn bright red. From there it usually doesn’t get any more or less red. I did double check the TA today and 50 was the number I got both times. Thanks for your help.

 

[MM32]

We recommend, if you have a heater to have 200 CH. I'd raise the CH to 200. Then if you still want/need to raise your CSI, raise TA to 60.

Thanks @PoolStored I will increase the calcium hardness and CYA to acceptable levels and then see where I’m at. Pool math seems to consider the CYA in the calculation for CSI however my heater manual does not. I will leave the TA alone unless it drops to 40 as what happened last week is more of any anomaly with the rain since my fill water SHOULD raise my TA. Thanks for all your help today!

 

[pjt]

For the TA test I add drops until it turns red. If it’s that greenish/greyish/in between color I usually have to add 1 more drop to get it to turn bright red.

Keep going until there's no additional color change. For me, it's another 2-3 drops after the initial color change. TA of 50 is perfectly fine.