PH rises like crazy

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Puppiesonacid

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May 11, 2016
198
MD
I have probably put in 7 or 8 gallons of muric acid this year.

I don't know or really care where ALK is. I know it is not 0 and it is under 100 from the last test, and 3 gallons of muric acid added.

I must have the most alkaline rain anywhere. I had PH at 7.2. after 2 days of rain, it is up to 7.8 again. if not more

I know the answer is more acid.... i will wait till it is done raining, circulate the water and test again.

There is no aeration that i know of going into the pool.. but every few weeks i add a gallon of acid, and it goes down, but up again.

Started the year at 220 alk thanks to pool store... but of course their test showed 100.. donkey's.

Just talking... unless someone can think of anything... but I guess my pool is just how it is as i have read, they all vary on this issue.
 
Nothing new really to add, but it can be frustrating. PH rise is attributable to several factors, one or more of which you will simply have to address to control:
- New plaster
- High TA (in many cases a TA of 50-60 helps significantly)
- Aeration
- High TA in local fill water

There may be another factor or two I missed, but those stand-out. "Heavy" rains over an extended period can sometimes generate enough aeration to increase pH some as well. But check those factors at y our next opportunity and you can manage it. Have a nice weekend.
 
Actually, you do care what your TA is. That is a big factor in your rising pH. We usually recommend that folks shoot for 50-70 TA. Put all your numbers into Pool Math and make sure your CSI is in the -0.3 to 0.3 range.

And please stay out of pool $tore. You have the best test kit you could ask for.
 
I was talking from the beginning of the season for the pool store... they had me add like 2 bags of baking soda. And the reason I don't really care about ALK is everything i have read on here is... if it keeps jumping up... it needs more acid until it is stable. so.. till i see it is stable... is there a reason to know it? I think it is still coming down. I could say it is 80, and you would say add more, correct? I could say it is 50, and i think i have read, add more till it becomes stable :)

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Texas Splash said:
Nothing new really to add, but it can be frustrating. PH rise is attributable to several factors, one or more of which you will simply have to address to control:
- New plaster
- High TA (in many cases a TA of 50-60 helps significantly)
- Aeration
- High TA in local fill water

There may be another factor or two I missed, but those stand-out. "Heavy" rains over an extended period can sometimes generate enough aeration to increase pH some as well. But check those factors at y our next opportunity and you can manage it. Have a nice weekend.
Click to expand...

Rain splashing... ah yes :) that makes sense... will check when it stops in another day
 
Do you use the well as a source of fill water? If so, what is the TA and pH of that well?

You have some things mixed up. TA doesn't keep "jumping up" unless you are making it do so.

Surely there's not so much rain up there that you can't find time to report back your findings. If you want to get it fixed or reach a better understanding of what's happening, you'll have to find time to get some test results.
 
duraleigh said:
Do you use the well as a source of fill water? If so, what is the TA and pH of that well?

You have some things mixed up. TA doesn't keep "jumping up" unless you are making it do so.

Surely there's not so much rain up there that you can't find time to report back your findings. If you want to get it fixed or reach a better understanding of what's happening, you'll have to find time to get some test results.
Click to expand...

I was more just posting how it is going... I already know the answer. Maybe I should change it to, the effects of a pool store, and fixing it from here on out. I know TA doesn't jump up. I don't think I said that? The PH keeps jumping up cause of high TA. I haven't filled it with well water in a month... and tbh, I have never tested the TA of it, but I add a few hundred gallons from time to time, but not enough to add up to much.

I wasn't thinking the rain splashing could raise PH so fast, but between high TA and that... may be why it does it after it rains most the time.
 
Puppies,

Another question is what pH are you trying to keep? If I try to keep pH at 7.2 it will quickly rise to 7.8. But if I try to keep a pH of 7.8, it will often stay there for weeks at a time.

Jim R.
 
Jimrahbe said:
Puppies,

Another question is what pH are you trying to keep? If I try to keep pH at 7.2 it will quickly rise to 7.8. But if I try to keep a pH of 7.8, it will often stay there for weeks at a time.

Jim R.
Click to expand...

I think it will stay 7.8... but i think last time it got up to like 8. something... so it keeps going up and up. id aim for 7.5 or .6 if i could get it to stay.
 
Pup,

You're not alone. I had similar issues when I took the pool back from the pool service, not as much acid but my pool is half your size. It's better than before but I'm still using about a gal per month of MA. To get here I lowered the TA to 50 (was well over 100) and increased the pH target to 7.6. I thought alkaline rain was the issue because I checked it coming out of the gutter (was 8) then I collected some directly in a sample container during rain and found it was 6.2. Almost certain the difference is due to construction dust in the area contaminating the gutters. Cement dust is very alkaline. Rain pH goes up and down .2 and seems related to how hard the rain is. I've read that 6 pH is actually high but certainly not high enough to raise my pool pH. I do run my pump a lot for the solar heat and that's probably a big part of the pH increase. We also keep the pool around 90 - due to happy wife, happy life principle.

I'm not sure if this helps any but at least you know there's somebody else in similar shape. There are times I think about letting it go even higher but I know that's risky to the equipment in the long run. I do the TFP method to keep my pool looking great at a very reasonable cost with minimum chemicals and to make my expensive gem coat plaster/equipment last as long as possible... so I do the acid dance weekly for the longer term. I've got a couple of friends that brag they don't use any acid and they had to re-plaster under 10 years. Time will tell if I'm benefiting but I'm going on 4 years and the pool finish looks brand new.


Best regards,

Chris
 

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setsailsoon said:
Pup,

You're not alone. I had similar issues when I took the pool back from the pool service, not as much acid but my pool is half your size. It's better than before but I'm still using about a gal per month of MA. To get here I lowered the TA to 50 (was well over 100) and increased the pH target to 7.6. I thought alkaline rain was the issue because I checked it coming out of the gutter (was 8) then I collected some directly in a sample container during rain and found it was 6.2. Almost certain the difference is due to construction dust in the area contaminating the gutters. Cement dust is very alkaline. Rain pH goes up and down .2 and seems related to how hard the rain is. I've read that 6 pH is actually high but certainly not high enough to raise my pool pH. I do run my pump a lot for the solar heat and that's probably a big part of the pH increase. We also keep the pool around 90 - due to happy wife, happy life principle.

I'm not sure if this helps any but at least you know there's somebody else in similar shape. There are times I think about letting it go even higher but I know that's risky to the equipment in the long run. I do the TFP method to keep my pool looking great at a very reasonable cost with minimum chemicals and to make my expensive gem coat plaster/equipment last as long as possible... so I do the acid dance weekly for the longer term. I've got a couple of friends that brag they don't use any acid and they had to re-plaster under 10 years. Time will tell if I'm benefiting but I'm going on 4 years and the pool finish looks brand new.


Best regards,

Chris
Click to expand...

Thanks. I think by the end of the year it will be down to around 50 by time I am done adding stuff. Chlorine does work better when the PH is lower... which is why i am trying to keep it down... so then i can slam before closing.

it just goes up so fast, and high that it takes a bit of acid till it will finally come down... but it does tend to sit at 7.8 for a while anyways when it gets there... so i will leave it next year if it does the same thing.

I am working on waiting till it is cold enough to close and to close it right as it is my first time trying...
 
With CYA in the water, pH has little effect on the strength of chlorine. That statement really only applies with no CYA often found in commercial pools.

For what it's worth, I add over a gallon per week of acid and that's with maintaining tight tolerances on TA, borates and minimal aeration.
 
bdavis466 said:
With CYA in the water, pH has little effect on the strength of chlorine. That statement really only applies with no CYA often found in commercial pools.

For what it's worth, I add over a gallon per week of acid and that's with maintaining tight tolerances on TA, borates and minimal aeration.
Click to expand...


Weird. I swear you hear everything and then some on here in some form or another. Lower it to 7.2 to slam cause it works better... but with CYA it doesn't... So... a slam is a slam no matter where PH is?
 
The recommendation to lower the pH before a SLAM has nothing to do with the effectiveness of chlorine at lower pH levels. The recommendation is there because at FC levels above 10, the pH test is not reliable and will often read false high because of a reaction between the chlorine and the phenol red reagent. Starting a SLAM with a low pH will hopefully buy time for the SLAM to be completed before the pH rises too quickly.

As I said before, with CYA in the water, pH level is almost irrelevant in impacting the strength of chlorine, at least to any amount the we are capable of measuring.
 
Alkalinity and accurately measuring TA are important for at least 2 reasons. First, your pool water CSI value is directly and strongly affected by your TA. At a constant pH of 7.6 and using typical TFP parameters for a plaster pool, the difference in CSI for 60ppm TA versus 100ppm TA is over 0.26, that is, -0.24 versus +0.02. That's almost a doubling in the saturation concentration of calcium carbonate in the pool water. Second, the TA value directly affects how much acid you need to add to your pool to lower the pH. Again, using standard TFP values and going from a pH of 7.8 to 7.5, a 100ppm TA value requires 19 fl. oz of acid to reduce the pH while a 60ppm TA value requires only 9 fl. oz of MA.
 
JoyfulNoise said:
Alkalinity and accurately measuring TA are important for at least 2 reasons. First, your pool water CSI value is directly and strongly affected by your TA. At a constant pH of 7.6 and using typical TFP parameters for a plaster pool, the difference in CSI for 60ppm TA versus 100ppm TA is over 0.26, that is, -0.24 versus +0.02. That's almost a doubling in the saturation concentration of calcium carbonate in the pool water. Second, the TA value directly affects how much acid you need to add to your pool to lower the pH. Again, using standard TFP values and going from a pH of 7.8 to 7.5, a 100ppm TA value requires 19 fl. oz of acid to reduce the pH while a 60ppm TA value requires only 9 fl. oz of MA.
Click to expand...

They did have me throw in 50 lbs of cal hypo at the beginning of the season as well, so the calcium number was quite high.

maybe that explains some of it? Or am I not understanding?
 
There was no mention of calcium hardness. Matt was referring to the calcite saturation index (CSI) which is a scale that indicates how aggressive or oversaturated your water is in regards to calcium carbonate content, not your calcium hardness specifically (which surprisingly has little to do with CSI). He was explaining the importance of knowing your TA level as it impacts far more than just pH rise. Next to pH, TA has a huge influence on CSI.
 
bdavis466 said:
There was no mention of calcium hardness. Matt was referring to the calcite saturation index (CSI) which is a scale that indicates how aggressive or oversaturated your water is in regards to calcium carbonate content, not your calcium hardness specifically (which surprisingly has little to do with CSI). He was explaining the importance of knowing your TA level as it impacts far more than just pH rise. Next to pH, TA has a huge influence on CSI.
Click to expand...

Got it. Sorry, I see the words calcium carbonate in his reply. that is where i got confused then.
 

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