I have read posts and learned from this forum for a couple of years. I finally joined today to answer a question I have that no one seems to be able to give me a logical answer to.
I have an above ground pool. I have maintained it for several years. I Use HtH 10% liquid Sodium Hypochlorite, HTH Calcium Hypochlorite granular shock, and in the extremely rare event I need to adjust PH up I do it with borax. Rarely I uses oxi shock to adjust Ph down. Cya is kept in the 15 range. PH almost always is 7.2 or 7.3. I literally use less than 2 pounds a year of borax to raise it. In the extremely rare instance I need to drop it I do it with oxi shock when the CC level is appropriate to use Oxi shock. Calcium hardness is 60. My total alkalinity does not even read it is so low. It has been off the charts for a couple years. When I first opened the pool I kept it in the recommended ranges and constantly fought with high ph and had to regularly use muratic acid. It was an endless, and I began to believe pointless, ritual of baking soda, acid, baking soda, acid. I quit trying to keep the alkalinity up. I thought, based on everything I had read, that I would constantly battle PH shifts, but that has not been the case. MY PH stays, for the most part, constant. If I am having absolutely no PH issues, and have not had any issues for over two years with T.A. off the scale, is there some other reason I should maintain it? The pool seems to be working perfectly with no measurable total alkalinity. I am quite sure that if I switched to an acidic chlorine that I would have a royal nightmare, but using two forms of basic chlorine, I have a very easy to maintain pool.
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance.
Hal
I have an above ground pool. I have maintained it for several years. I Use HtH 10% liquid Sodium Hypochlorite, HTH Calcium Hypochlorite granular shock, and in the extremely rare event I need to adjust PH up I do it with borax. Rarely I uses oxi shock to adjust Ph down. Cya is kept in the 15 range. PH almost always is 7.2 or 7.3. I literally use less than 2 pounds a year of borax to raise it. In the extremely rare instance I need to drop it I do it with oxi shock when the CC level is appropriate to use Oxi shock. Calcium hardness is 60. My total alkalinity does not even read it is so low. It has been off the charts for a couple years. When I first opened the pool I kept it in the recommended ranges and constantly fought with high ph and had to regularly use muratic acid. It was an endless, and I began to believe pointless, ritual of baking soda, acid, baking soda, acid. I quit trying to keep the alkalinity up. I thought, based on everything I had read, that I would constantly battle PH shifts, but that has not been the case. MY PH stays, for the most part, constant. If I am having absolutely no PH issues, and have not had any issues for over two years with T.A. off the scale, is there some other reason I should maintain it? The pool seems to be working perfectly with no measurable total alkalinity. I am quite sure that if I switched to an acidic chlorine that I would have a royal nightmare, but using two forms of basic chlorine, I have a very easy to maintain pool.
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance.
Hal