pH dropped to 6.8, do I need immediate action?

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napkin41

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Mar 4, 2018
60
Prosper, TX
So, I had some issues with my plaster that I communicated to the PB. They sent someone over today to take a look at it. I came home this evening to do my daily readings, and it looks like my pH is reading 6.8 or possibly lower.

I can't fathom why or how it dropped, and my best guess is that while the plaster guys were here, they possibly added something to my pool, or tried to acid wash my plaster? Everyone's closed right now so I'm not getting any answers tonight.

The question is, do I need to urgently add anything to bring my pH back up? I don't (think I) have anything on hand at the moment.

Sigh.
 
Haha, you guys are starting to rub off on me. That's the first thing I did. Pump is running on high speed to get that water up-up-up in the air.

I'm guessing I don't need to go into battle-stations pH. Should I just let my water feature flow all night and check it in the morning, or will my pump melt and explode if I don't correct it? (;
 
Glad we can be a good influence! The PH and TA are great friends and tend to work together. Once you get every thing table you will find the TA YOUR pool likes. You will know it is happy when the PH stays stable for quite a few days unless you are running your water feature or have a LOT of cannons balls going on!

Kim:kim:
 
Now might be a good time to ask that question. So, because I have a tanning ledge at 9" deep (I think it's about 10'x8', primary a splash pad for my kids), the PB opted to put that feature in there to increase flow on that "shelf." I keep it running for this reason. There's also two other returns on that shelf, but they direct water across it instead of upward. They're tied into the same valve that turns on my water feature.

Should I be running the returns on my tanning ledge all the time to prevent accumulation of settling things on it? When my pump is on low speed, it's more of a "mound" of water instead of white water getting flung up into the air, but the water does break the surface a little bit. I keep it on, but I'm considering shutting it off. Now that I think about it, I had been fighting rising pH for a while, and I just attributed it to week 7 of curing plaster. I'm sure the aeration isn't helping to keep pH down.

Edit: Oh, and I checked pH this morning. 7.2. I left the feature on because with these cooler temperatures I want to bring CSI back into range if I can by raising pH a bit more.
 
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You'll get far more pH rise out of that curing plaster than you will having jets that riffle the water.

Long term, I think personally I'd rather add a little more acid from time to time than to have yuck build up on that ledge, or to have the water stagnate in that area resulting in lower chlorination and localized algae breakouts. You need to brush anyways, but those jets will keep things on the ledge clean and clear. :)
 

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Yeah, I guess there were a few spots where some of the dust had accumulated that hardened. The PB e-mailed me back today and told me they did indeed dump 1/4 gallon of acid on the dull spots to try and scrub them out a bit. Would have been nice to know, I'm usually at work when these things happen during the day.

I was young, I was wreckless, I didn't know that you couldn't brush new plaster enough. Fortunately there's only a dull spot here or there.

I've been running my pump on high all night and all morning (plus the plaster is still doing it's curing and raising of pH), but I won't be able to check the new measurements until I get home. If my pH was able to get up to 7.4 or 7.5 my CSI will be good!
 
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