I just moved into a home and found that I had CYA levels of about 120. I decided to do a partial drain and just got done refilling. Apparently my home water has very high TA though, because despite the pool being at 100 before, now I'm up to about 180. So now I need to lower my TA. I just bought a couple of gallon bottles of muriatic acid to add, but am trying to develop a good plan on adding them. I've read to lower the pH to 7.2 then aerate to raise the pH back up. Well, according the Pool Calculator, that should only take 16oz of muriatic acid and according to my Taylor Chemistry Guide, I need to add a total of just about 2 gallons of acid to get the alkalinity down to where I want it.
Should I really be doing this little by little over the course of weeks to get the TA back down, aerating after each addition? I should add that I only have two returns on the pool, so getting a lot of aeration isn't going to be easy and I have no idea how long it will take to get the pH back up between each addition of acid. Could I also get the pH up by adding borax instead of aeration?
Should I really be doing this little by little over the course of weeks to get the TA back down, aerating after each addition? I should add that I only have two returns on the pool, so getting a lot of aeration isn't going to be easy and I have no idea how long it will take to get the pH back up between each addition of acid. Could I also get the pH up by adding borax instead of aeration?