Interesting!

[RobbieH]

Passing along a little info, and of course always open to comment.

Typically when we get a storm, it drives my pH up. I'm used to it, and actually welcome it most the time since I don't have any aeration going on in my pool. Last night we got hammered with a very long storm, around 3 or 4 hours. Checked the pool today, of course the chlorine was a little low, but still in range, lots of leaves and organics in the pool (a ton of carpenter ants for some reason?) but pH was LOW. I did not expect it to be low! My borates were a little low so added Borax, and have a couple of homemade aerators running (wait until you see these things!!!).

Again, just really surprised it shifted pH the way it did, and open to comment!

 

[woodyp]

I dunno.......my PH always goes up as well. The other half of your ants are in MY pool! Only got a half inch rain out of it over here. Crossing fingers for more tonite.

 

[jcarithe]

Not the point of the thread, but I'm just north of you and we had a ton of carpenter ants in the pool today as well. Anyone have any suggestions on how to prevent this?

 

[RobbieH]

Borates eliminated them for me, but my pool overflowed big time in the last storms and did again last night, so my borates are down. I put one box in tonight, especially since my pH was down, need to buy more tomorrow.

 

[RobbieH]

I just found out we had over 3" last night.

 

[anonapersona]

Agitation drives pH up. Fresh water with low pH drives pH down, rain is usually between 6 and 7 IIRC. Acid rain drives pH down even more. The end effect depends on the volume of water.

 

[RobbieH]

It is weird. Last big storms had the opposite effect. Lesson learned? Check every time after a big storm!

I should mention I'm running borates, which buffers the effect most the time.

 

[LisaM]

I was just talking with my sister last night about our pools and PH. Normally here in NE Ohio rain drops your PH like a rock! Well it rained most of last week and when I checked my PH last night it was sky high! Glad I checked because normally I just toss PH+ in after a rain without bothering to test! The same thing happened to her this week.