Lowering my TA taking a long time

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Claughaun

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Jul 10, 2009
15
topic split

I started lowering my TA last week - so far about 3 gallons of acid in 10 days and aereating with my spa jets . My TA is currently at 140 and Ph is 7.5. I was running my pump non-stop. I started all this to fight an Algae bloom. Brushing and increased chlorine levels got rid of most of it but there are darker patches where wire-brushing has no effect. Water looks great now though. So I'm back to running pump 8 hours a day - my electricity bill was blossoming. I'll continue to aereate to bring up the Ph so I can add acid to lower the TA. As soon as the TA is under 80 I'll boreate the heck out of it with 20-mule and acid. I was really hoping to be below TA 100 by now though... :hammer:
Anything I can do to speed it up a bit without running the aereating process 24-hours a day? I'm not sure what my original TA was - Leslie's said it was 150, but I suspect it was much higher...
BTW, where does one get La Motte boreate strips?
Eddie
SWG
 
Re: low PH 6.8 and high TA 300+

Hi Eddie,
Please start your own threads instead of replying to one. if your ph is 7.5 go ahead and add acid to bring it down to 7.0 and continue aerating. when I did mine I went up to 7.2 and would drop it back to 7.0 again. there's not really anything you can do to speed it up though, besides make more aerators. doing it the way I described above may help slightly also. are you familiar with pool-school/ and the chlorine/cya chart, etc? good luck with the borates, you won't regret it!
 
Claughaun said:
Brushing and increased chlorine levels got rid of most of it but there are darker patches where wire-brushing has no effect. Water looks great now though.
Click to expand...

Would you like some assistance on this part of your post?

Did you thoroughly shock the pool until the FC held overnight? What is your CYA level?
 
I have an SWG. About two weeks ago I noticed that my chlorine was almost non-existant and I had an algae bloom. Turned out my SWG needed cleaning even though I had it cleaned at Leslies about a month ago. Anyway, I aggressively cleaned the cell with an acid solution and used a hacksaw-blade (nice and thin and strong and long) to scrape off the deposits. Then I SUPERed the water and got the CL level back up and brushed most of the algae. According to a Leslies chart last Friday my FC was 5, my TA was 140 , my CYA was 100, my Phosphates were 500 (they blame everything on the Phosphates), my salt was 3500 ( my SWG shows it at 3100). I have my new test kit now so I'll post my own figures here: FC is 2.5 (my SWG is at 60%), my Ph is 7.2 (added acid earlier and am aereating), my TA is now down to 120, my CYA is 100.

How do I lower my CYA ( I used to have a trichlor system before I switched to SWG).
 
Lowering TA does take a long time. The only way you can speed it up is to increase the amount of aeration. Let it take time, there isn't any reason to rush.

The only practical way to lower the CYA level is to replace water. I strongly recommend that you lower the CYA level below 100, preferably to around 80. The standard CYA test will read levels above 100 as if they were 100. So you actual CYA level might be much higher.
 
There is also an area of the pool that has about a dozen brown stains - like rust spots. They are about an inch long and kind of elliptical in shape. Brushing has no effect on them. They are only in one area of the pool roughly 5ft by 3 ft. They've been there since before I switched to SWG - they are at least a year old.
 

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Your CH and CYA levels are both fairly high. You should replace water to get both of them down.

Given how high your CYA level is, your FC level is too low. With CYA around 100, you always want to keep FC at 8 or higher (5 if you have a SWG).
 
Claughaun said:
Vitamin C tablet added a dark spot to the brown spot...
Click to expand...

Sounds like that could be copper staining. Try putting some dry acid in a sock and setting it on the stain. See if that changes it. If it does, then an acid wash is really the only thing left. That can be expensive and is not DIY kind of thing. You may elect to live with them.

Ditto what Jason said regarding your levels.
 
OK. Lowering the TA to 90 is my plan. But I'm not going to drain half my pool, so CYA and CH are probably staying where they are. After I lower my TA to 90 should I Borate the pool? Or has CYA and CH to absolutely come down first?
 
I would lower the CYA level thru water replacement first, we're not talking half the pool. Getting down to 80 would be fine, so that's only 20% water replacement (assuming it's not really higher than 100 - since the test only goes up to 100, it could actually be higher)

The order of things:

I would go 1/4-1/3 down, refill, recirculate and retest (see where CYA is at and repeat if necessary),confirm your FC is holding overnight by doing an overnight FC loss test (with the SWG turned OFF), and if the FC is stable, then lower the TA to 90, and then begin the Borate process.
 
JasonLion said:
Given how high your CYA level is, your FC level is too low. With CYA around 100, you always want to keep FC at 8 or higher (5 if you have a SWG).
Click to expand...

So how does one increase the FC level when one has an SWG already running at 100% and only an FC of 2 to show for it?
 
please add this info as it helps a lot: pool-school/read_before_you_post

I would imagine you have algae whether it's showing itself or not. do you have a good (fas-dpd) test kit?
running an swg at 100% will kill it a lot faster than at a lower setting. you should do an overnight test if you have a fas-dpd test. pool-school/overnight_fc_test
you'll also need to use bleach or liquid chlorine to raise your chlorine level, and you're probably going to need to shock. or your swg might be biting the dust. the other issue is, your cya may actually be higher than 100, which will make your efforts useless if you're assuming it's 100 and it's actually higher. I believe the test maxes out at 100 unless you dilute it to read higher. shocking with a cya of 100 will be quite a project.
 
For some reason I didn't think it was ok to add Chlorine (bleach etc.) to the pool while I have an SWG running...

My TA is down to 110 - I'm holding off lowering it further until I get my CYA down.
My FC was 4 last week and looked steady and now it's 1.5 - with the SWG at 100% 8 hrs a day.
My CYA is over 100

I flushed and replaced some water which brought my Salt down to 2800 from 3100 but didn't affect CYA. I guess I gotta flush some more.

The water looks and feels great. The algae stains are all gone - even the stubborn ones.
 

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