PH and TA issue

[jmarsden26]

I am having trouble maintaining my PH levels. I guess I'm not sure what is considered a normal amount of muriatic acid, but I'm going through about a jug (gallon, 31.45%) a week. I'll bring PH down to 7.2 or even 7 and then a few days later it's 8+.

The only aeration I have is a water fall from spa to pool. It's about 2 feet wide and spills down about 1 foot straight into the pool. My TA is at 50 today and has slowly been heading down for about 6 months (was around 110 in the spring.) I'm not doing this on purpose, it's just going south. My usual maintenance is a jug of bleach every other day or so, and of course about half a jug of acid twice a week.

What's a good target TA? What is the effect of too high or too low TA? How do you raise and lower TA? Is this a normal amount of acid to use?

All other test are normal and water is clear.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Texas Splash]

This question always brings-up lots of responses, but I'll start it off with the basics. Assuming your plaster is not new, then maintaining pH and TA become a chess match to see how they both "get along" well at a certain level. While there are some generic industry recommendations, typically we find that first and foremast achieving a stable pH between 7.2-7.8 is priority. Sometimes this means lowering TA and then aerating to raise the pH, other times it's simply raising one or the other.
In your case, now only is the TA getting a bit low, probably from the repetitive acid treatments, but the pH still seems to be rising - possibly in-part to the constant spa spillover. That may just be a cause/effect issue you have do manage as the aeration from the spillover drives pH higher. Something else you want to watch is your CSI level. You'll find that on the Poolmath Calculator near the bottom, so after you've done all of your testing, enter your readings and check to see if you're between the acceptable ranges. That will let you know if you still have wiggle room to adjust one or the other further up and down.

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You might like this thread also: Constant Low TA, High PH.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

One thing to keep in mind is that pH rise is not linear. When you drop your pH down to 7, the rise from 7 to 7.5 can be very quick (hours in some cases) while the rise from 7.6 to 8.0 is much slower.

My suggestion would be to target your pH adjustments a little better and try to not go below 7.5. If you post a full set of results, then we can all look at the data and see where your CSI is at.

Another consideration would be to add 50ppm borates to help slow the rise a little more. You also might use less bleach with the borates in the water acting as a secondary algaecide thus potentially reducing chlorine demand. That last part is not guaranteed to happen but does happen for some.


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