Focus on PH or CSI?

[Plefasu]

I have gotten my SWCG dialed in and everything is looking great and trouble free. I have been testing every day to get a good handle on things and my PH likes to hang around 8.0. Is there any negative to having the high end PH all the time? With the High PH my CSI is great. Wanted to get an opinion on whether I should bother bringing PH down or just let it be. Thanks in advance for any insight.

FC- 8.5
PH- 8.0
TA- 80
CH-270
CYA-80
Salt- 4000
Temp- 81
CSI- 0.02

 

[Texas Splash]

Nothing wrong at all with your pH right now. In fact, the pH in salt pools seems to settle better around 7.8 - 8.0, so watching the PoolMath APP results as you have been doing is great. We expect the CH in your area to generally be elevated, so it's great to see your CH under 300 which allows the pH to be a little higher with no problem. That's important to minimize scale around the pool and SWG cell. Your test numbers look fantastic right now. Picture-perfect.

 

[Jimrahbe]

P,

As long as your CSI looks good, a pH pf 8.0 is perfectly fine.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Plefasu]

Awesome, thank you both for the feedback. I went from throwing a few pucks in a couple times a week to doing things the TFP way. Feels great to have everything dialed in and actually know and understand the water chemistry.

 

[DanF]

You're fortunate to have a CH of 270 in the Phoenix area. Have you drained or exchanged water recently?

 

[bryanq480]

Tempe here, I had CH around 260 when i checked last month - water was drained and refilled Jan 2019

 

[Plefasu]

I had the classic CYA at 400 from using trichlor for 2 years situation and needed to do some pebble work so the pool was fully drained and refilled about a month ago. Not the best time to be doing that but the CYA was so high it had to be done.

 

[Dirk]

Hey Plefasu, I agree with all that was said about pH and CSI. My pH is happiest around 7.8 - 8.0 as well. But...

The K-2006 only measures pH to 8.0, and doesn't indicate all that well if you are actually at 8.0 or somewhere above it. So I keep my pH at 7.8 - 7.9 just for that reason, so that I know what it is. That leaves my CSI just a bit negative. With an SWG it's recommenced here to run a slightly negative CSI to keep the cell's plates from accumulating scale, and that's what I do. So just under 8.0 works for me for a couple reasons.

 

[Plefasu]

Thanks Dirk. I have been trying to keep the PH at 7.8 which gives me a CSI of -0.18. I may look into adding borates as we use the hot tub almost every day and the jets dont help with the pH rise. I also have the overspill for the hot tub set to a trickle so that the hot tub gets chlorinated water cycled to it. If anyone has a better process for keeping the hot tub chlorinated without having to run the spillover I would be interested in hearing it.

 

[DanF]

Just a note about your CSI. Your CH will rise over time, as you replace evaporated pool water with city/tap water. Remember you just drained and filled your pool with roughly 200 CH.

This CH rise will also cause your CSI to rise. You may need to counteract that with a lower pH and TA. Dirk's CH is low cuz he has a softener hooked up to his fill water (I'm jealous), so he can keep his pH/TA a tad higher.

 

[Dirk]

I use an acid injection system to deal with my ever-on-the-rise pH. I've never tried borates, so I can't offer any advice there. I have to keep the acid system adjusted, but that's as easy as adjusting an SWG. So now I only have to handle acid when the hopper needs a refill. Which is about every other month or so (it holds four gallons). If you were inclined to further complicate your setup, you might have a look into that. Then you could run your bubbles and spillover to your heart's content.

My IntellipH works hand in hand with my IntelliChlor and my EasyTouch automation controller. It's a great system. In fact, the IntellipH requires the presence of an IntelliChlor, so it wouldn't work with your Resilience without some heavy-duty DIY mods. But if you ever feel yourself leaning towards more electronic junk and less pool maintenance, by adding automation, then maybe the next time your Resilience cell needs replacing, you could instead "upgrade" the whole Pentair system at the same time. I believe your pump model is the one that works with Pentair automation, so you're already part way there. Hey, it's your money, but I don't mind spending it for you!

 

[Dirk]

Dirk's CH is low cuz he has a softener hooked up to his fill water (I'm jealous), so he can keep his pH/TA a tad higher.

Between the last two posts, you can see how I will go to extraordinary effort to save myself a little effort. Oh, uh, wait...

 

[Plefasu]

I would love soft water on my autofill. I think the plumbing change would be too expensive so I will just monitor CH and adjust pH/TA as needed. I just replaced the salt cell as the swcg hadn't been used in years and I resurrected it. I figured $450 for the cell was better than $1100 on a new system that I would have to re-plumb. Its a gamble as who knows how long the controller will last. I love the idea of automation but when I looked into that it turned into a can of worms. I'm the type of person that once I commit to doing something I go all in so it got real expensive real fast when I was pricing it out. I've also looked into the acid injection systems and they seem to be in the $500 range. I am not sure the cost is justified as I am only needing to add a cup or two of acid every few days and id probably spend more time tinkering with the injection rate than actually dosing the acid myself. I saw some DIY injection systems that could be built for less so I may look into that as well.

 

[Dirk]

I plumbed the softener myself for just the cost of the materials. It's not too bad, though I am pretty handy so I have the skills (working with PEX, copper and PVC). I'll walk you through it if you ever have a mind to give it a go.

Sounds like you have a good handle on all the automation options.