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So I will add 8 Big Bags (12lbs) of Bicarb as I fill the pool, About 1/4 of a bag for every 1K Gallons - 32 doses for my 30K pool and spa - 1536 Oz in total - that should bring my TA to 395. My PH, out the Faucet is 7.8 so this will raise my PH to about 8.4(to be tested as we go) To Manage the increase in PH and maintain it at 7.8-8.1 I will do the following: 10 oz of 31% Muratic Acid for every 6K gallons of water
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Sound about right?
So I'm not familiar with bicarb startup, but I am somewhat familiar with PoolMath, and I wanted to point out three things.
Firstly, I note that your screenshots above are calculating on a 24,000 gallon pool, but you said you have a 30,000 gallon pool. Was this intentional?
Secondly, the easy way of calculating this is to fill out all the values in the
Now and
Target columns. If you do this, it tells you exactly what you need to add to change something from the value in the
Now to that in the
Target. Trying do use the
Effects of adding chemicals to do this is a guess and check process.
Effects of adding chemicals is useful, but moreso only for if you're already adding a specific amount of chemical, usually because you've determined that from the
Now and
Target columns, and you want to see what other affects the chemicals have. For example, it told you a gallon of 12.5% liquid chlorine, so you go down to
Effects and see that in addition to adding 4.2 ppm FC it also adds 6.9 ppm of salt (for 30k pool).
Anyway, if you type this out, here's how that looks for a 30,000 gallon pool, based on the tests you gave in your first post, raising TA from 109 to 259. This calculates out 1057 oz by weight of baking soda.
Third and finally,
Effects of adding chemicals is not great for calculating pH changes. Note the disclaimer that it's only an estimate and only for TA around 80-120. The
pH section of the calculator is what you want to use to measure pH changes, but that said you'll have to rely on testing the actual pH rise. My pH test comparitor only goes up to 8, some testing comparitors go to 8.2. Once at or above this you don't know the actual pH, unless you have a pH meter, so you'd type it in as what you measure or the max if at the limit of measuring. Then add acid and after mixing confirm pH reached target with testing, if the pH was over the max of the kit it won't have dropped to the target but you can test again and now it's in range you can do a second acid addition. But anyway,
to use PoolMath to calculate acid for 8.2 to 7.8, on a 30,000 gallon pool, do this:
One final thing. That above pH calc screenshot was for a 30,000 gallon pool. To get the correct acid amount in addition to the current TA in the
Now column you'll also need to enter the volume of the water in the pool. It won't be 30,000 gallons as you fill, so adjust that as you go.
Hope this helps!
P.S. PoolMath is now available for iPhone and Android devices as an app. Adds ability to log results if you get the yearly subscription, and does all this web version does and more. Plus it's in your pocket. Happy to help you get started with using that app or giving example cases with screenshots if you'd like.
