Does dry acid increase the likelihood of scaling?

[loop_pea]

On Friday I got the pool water up to a nice temperature for the first time but the water started to go cloudy. I could still see the deep end, but the water became dull and whitish looking.

If I plug my numbers into pool calculator, it says that the water is hugely out of balance. I've been fighting a high pH ever since I got water in the pool two weeks ago, and this along with temperature seem to have a huge effect on the CSI.

I've let the pool cool down a little and have been continuing to add acid. When I pour the acid in, I can literally see the water sparkle where the acid is added. But after a short while the water starts to go dull again, not as bad as before, but certainly not sparkley.

I've been using dry acid, since it's easy to get hold of in the UK, unlike hydrochloric acid. The only places I know I could get hydrochloric acid from charge a huge delivery fee that is probably twice the cost of the product, which makes dry acid far, far cheaper.

How much dry acid is too much? I've probably got through 10kg so far. And can the sulphates in the product have an effect on calcium scaling? The water didn't start off cloudy even though the pH of the pool was much higher originally - it's now about 7.7 compared to around 8.2+ 10 days ago - although the water was colder.

In other words, should I really be spending the extra money on hydrochloric acid?

 

[JasonLion]

When you first add acid, the PH in that local region drops dramatically, and then as it mixes into more water it goes back up. I suspect you have some mild calcium clouding, which vanishes when the PH is really low during that initial mix-in, and then comes back as the PH goes back up.

It takes a really lot of dry acid before you could possibly have a problem with sulfates. I very much doubt that has anything to do with your current situation. In the longer run, I would keep looking around. There should be inexpensive sources of muriatic/hydrochloric acid somewhere.