Low TA, stable pH

[palmspriings]

Greetings! I'm looking for a little reassurance here. My pool has always had the following battles as I live in the desert with hard, hard water.

Rising pH, approx. .2-.3 per day and of course, calcium hardness-Bad combination for scaling!

To combat, I drain my pool as often as I can and keep my TA down at 60. In addition, I use trichloro pucks to assist with pH. Still need to feed my pool acid 3x per week, taking it down to 7.1-7.2 with each addition. Recently, I had a pool company take over the reins as I had foot surgery. I made the tech aware of my pools acid habit and requested that he add to 7.2 each visit (2x per week) The first week he completely overshoot, taking my pool down to approx. 6.4-6.5 both times. I was mortified! Here are the results:

CH 375
TA 40
pH 7.5
TC 6.5
CC 0.5
FC 6
CYA 30

The low TA is giving me a CSI of -0.4 with a temp of 72 degrees...in the danger zone. This will only get better as my CH rises. But for the first time, the pH appears stable. If this continues, can I assume my pool likes a TA of 40 and not worry about it being too low?

Thanks for the help!

 

[jblizzle]

What was the pH previously rising too? I think you were trying to maintain the pH too low.
At low pH it rises faster. Is there a chance the pool would have stabilized at a pH of 7.8 which would have been fine?

That TA and CSI is a little on the low side for my liking.

 

[palmspriings]

Jason
I tried that approach, but the pH kept rising .2-.3 daily. When it hit 8.2, I realized that wasn't the answer. I drained the pool approx. one month ago, which is why the current CH isn't bad, but it's only a matter of a few months that it will be 500+

I will continue to track the TA and pH, I don't plan on adding acid until it hits 7.8. My experience with this pool says that by the TA will most likely rise a bit in the meantime. Maybe it can find a happy place at 50

 

[jblizzle]

You could also try adding borates to stabilize the pH as well.