Muriatic acid not bringing down ph?

[keeghan2002]

Hey I'm pretty new to pools. We have just a cheapy Intex pool that holds about 8,300 gallons of water. Since we put it up we have not been able to get the PH to come down. We used an entire 3kg thing of PH reducer that had NO effect at all. After looking at lots of posts on here and learning about Muriatic acid we went and got some of that. We put about 2L of it in today, the calculator on here said to put about 54oz. And still no change, maybe very slight but not really noticeable Help! Not sure how to get the PH under control or what is causing it to remain so high after all of that! Oh our pump is an intex sand filter pump, if that makes a difference at all. TIA

 

[Schadenfreude]

Hi. What are you using to measure pH?

 

[keeghan2002]

Hi, test strips from Walmart (HTH brand I believe). Probably not the greatest lol. It has come down a little according to the stripes but not enough yet.

 

[zea3]

Hi, welcome to TFP! First, check the pH of your fill water, if it is ok, then look at the return and see if water splashes a lot when it enters the pool from the filter. If your fill water has high pH it may just take a lot of acid to bring it down. I asked about the splashing since that will raise pH.

 

[keeghan2002]

Stupid question.... what is fill water? I have the jet on the return pointed down and to the side a bit so it makes the pool circulate. You can see the water right above the jet move a tiny bit but it doesn't splash, bubble or anything like that. I have only been running the pump for 6 hours at night.

 

[PAGirl]

To be safe, while you wait for your test kit to come (wink) go to Walmart and get an OTO chlorine/PH test, it's around $6. Your PH might be a lot lower tHan you think. Test strips aren't very reliable. Fill water is the source from which you fill your pool.

 

[keeghan2002]

PERFECT! Thank you so much for your replies. Went and got a OTO test and it said the ph was a little on the low side. The water was a bit green from before I put the acid in, and even though I had a few pucks of chlorine in the dispenser it was reading no chlorine at all on the OTO. So I shocked it. The ph went up to about 7.7 (the colouring was in between 7.6 & 7.8) but now the chlorine levels are perfect. Good level for free chlorine and the test strips are saying a good amount of Total chlorine And the water is clear, just need to do some vacuuming and all is well! The test strips still say that the ph is extremely high so thank you for telling me about the OTO test, definitely a better test for ph!!

 

[PAGirl]

You should still order the proper test kit. Have you read any of pool school yet? Pucks are not recommended, nor test strips. We also don't "shock", we SLAM. (On my phone, can't post the links, but they all can be found above in "pool school")

 

[jblizzle]

I agree with the others, you need a test kit and to follow the SLAM process. I predict the green will be back shortly because you are not properly maintaining the chemistry.