I have been monitoring my pool water everyday with an approved testing kit and the PH of my pool has been sitting steady at 7.4 for the last three days which is fine, but my total alkalinity has continued to rise everyday. My last three readings are 151, 155, 167. I know looking through this website it says to not worry about lowering the TA just to reach a target number and only lower if you have the risk for scaling or the PH is rising. I have neither of these problems at the moment and since I have a vinyl lined above ground pool, do I need to worry about any of this? I'm nervous the high number is going to cause an unwanted issue for me. I know low total alkalinity can be bad, but what about high in my situation? Any help and information would be appreciated. Thanks.
Alkalinity Question
- Thread starter digger0713
- Start date
TA generally isn't going to rise quickly without a pH increase or the addition of high TA replacement water. I suspect your pH has crept up just a hair that can't be easily measured, and between that and the accuracy of the test you really aren't seeing much if any change in TA.
Don't worry about it. If your pH is relatively steady, you can start testing TA weekly and just concentrate on pH and chlorine on your daily tests
Don't worry about it. If your pH is relatively steady, you can start testing TA weekly and just concentrate on pH and chlorine on your daily tests
Thank you. My PH has been relatively steady and I've only had to add chlorine every 2-3 days so everything is going good with the pool. I just see that higher than normal number and get nervous. I don't want to damage my pool, equipment, or mess my water chemistry up badly. This site has made it much easier and less stressful to manage my pool.
Those numbers look like a LaMotte?
I'm not familiar with them, but they're not so far apart that I would suspect anything more sinister than the margin of error.
I'm not familiar with them, but they're not so far apart that I would suspect anything more sinister than the margin of error.
Yes it is Richard. It's a Lamotte Color Q 7 Pro 2056 test kit. I really like it and it probably is just the error margin. You guys don't seem too concerned over my numbers so I'm not going to stress over them either.
Yeah, your numbers are fine. The LaMotte may report those numbers to you but it has nowhere near that precision. + or - 10 ppm on a good day is about the best you can expect. Even then, that is just fine for the type of TA control that we monitor.
Good to know. Thanks for all the help. I was not really accounting for error margin + and - and that would explain a lot. Makes me feel better about things. You guys have eliminated my need to depend on the pool store and I'm flying solo for the first time on my own and loving it. Thanks.