As the title says, I have fairly high TA fill water. My fill water TA has risen from 125 three years ago to 300 this past summer. I'm not really sure whether changes in TA on city water are common or not, but this past season I had to test PH more often and obviously had to lower PH more often than the previous two seasons. To combat the rising TA and corresponding rising PH, I used a sump pump, cut apart the bottom and glued some clear tubing into it. I'd tape the clear tubing to my ladder so it was out of the water and dangle the sump pump into the water and turn it on. This allowed the pressure of the water entering the pump to pull air through the tube and push that air out of the pump outlet, thus creating bubbles and aeration. This procedure worked, but the rise in PH was painfully slow. Even so, I was able to lower my TA from 200 to 100 in about 5 days of constant aeration through the sump pump. It would take several (8-10) hours to raise PH from 7.2 to 7.5, although it would not rise much at all after that. So, when PH hit 7.5 I would go ahead and knock it back down to 7.2 and start the waiting game again.
Fast forward to last weekend. I'm winterizing my pool because I'm cursed enough to live in a climate that requires me to winterize. Unpack my brand new cyclone and begin by pushing water out of my longest skimmer run. Then, I hook up to the second skimmer and push the water through that line back to the pump. I then start the main drains, I'm standing there watching the unbelievable amount of turbulence and air pushing out of the main drains and into the body of water and it hits me. This is how I should be aerating when I'm working to lower TA! Thought I'd run this idea past the experts. When I built my sump aerator, I read several posts on here with pictures of different homemade aerators but have not come across any threads that discuss utilizing the main drain with a cyclone. Obviously, I'd have to shut down the pump when aerating but I don't see that as a problem as long as it would accelerate the PH rise and make the procedure of lowering TA much faster. So, my main question is: Does introducing massive amounts of air into the pool and creating turbulence cause PH to rise faster than turbulence created at the surface like waterfalls and such?
Fast forward to last weekend. I'm winterizing my pool because I'm cursed enough to live in a climate that requires me to winterize. Unpack my brand new cyclone and begin by pushing water out of my longest skimmer run. Then, I hook up to the second skimmer and push the water through that line back to the pump. I then start the main drains, I'm standing there watching the unbelievable amount of turbulence and air pushing out of the main drains and into the body of water and it hits me. This is how I should be aerating when I'm working to lower TA! Thought I'd run this idea past the experts. When I built my sump aerator, I read several posts on here with pictures of different homemade aerators but have not come across any threads that discuss utilizing the main drain with a cyclone. Obviously, I'd have to shut down the pump when aerating but I don't see that as a problem as long as it would accelerate the PH rise and make the procedure of lowering TA much faster. So, my main question is: Does introducing massive amounts of air into the pool and creating turbulence cause PH to rise faster than turbulence created at the surface like waterfalls and such?
