Muriatic Acid turned my water yellow!

[Firemedic1990]

Hello. I’ve been lurking here for a couple of years and this year I decided I was going to jump in. I cleaned my hot tub and added fresh water. The specifics are in my signature. My Taylor test kit came today, I had been using the HTH from Walmart, and my test was as follows: Bromine 5.4, pH was off of the chart (added 27 drops of the acid demand reagent to get a pH of 7.4, TA 150, CH 140. I added the recommended amount of Borax yesterday but my strips aren’t in yet to test my level. I wasn’t sure what to with/about the pH result so I guessed that my pH was >10 but put into the pool math app as 10 to get an idea of what I needed to do. The app recommended 22 oz of 31.45% Muriatic acid. Well I did that and my water that was beautiful and clear turned yellow, like urine! Please help, what did I do wrong?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

You should not have added that much acid to the tub that fast. You water turned yellow because the low pH generated elemental bromine and bromine will turn water yellow. It will, or should, go away once the pH is correctly balanced but my concern is that you zero'd out your TA and now your pH has crashed below 5 and your water is far too acidic. If you can not get a proper pH reading, I suggest simply dumping all the water in the tub and start over. The longer that water sits in contact with the tubs plumbing, the more corrosion it will cause.

In the future, if you are unsure about chemical additions, either ask a question on this forum or break the additions up into small batches. Adding large quantities of chemicals to a small volume of water can be very dangerous to people and equipment.

 

[Firemedic1990]

Thanks for the response. So I retested the water and the pH test is bright yellow and the TA is red with the alkalinity indicator. Hard lesson to learn. I’m guessing I’ll need to dump and start over?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Thanks for the response. So I retested the water and the pH test is bright yellow and the TA is red with the alkalinity indicator. Hard lesson to learn. I’m guessing I’ll need to dump and start over?

I would. That’s far too acidic. You could add something like soda ash to try to restore the pH balance but, honestly, 280 gallons of water isn’t that much.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Refill it immediately and get it circulating. You want to make sure there’s no acidic water sitting on the plumbing lines.

 

[PoolguyinCT]

Throw some cucumbers in & you will have pickles before you know it!

 

[Firemedic1990]

Throw some cucumbers in & you will have pickles before you know it!

LOL

 

[Firemedic1990]

So I started adding baking soda 3 oz at a time, running the jets & aerator, and testing every 30 minutes last night by 1AM my pH was 7.6 & TA 160. It would have taken much longer to drain the tub & refill.

This morning my water is clear & beautiful. The test results:
Bromine 2.25
pH 8.0
TA 160
Temp 99

So what is the next step?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

You overshot the TA. In a hot tub you really want your TA to be below 80ppm, 60ppm is probably optimal. That is because high TA and aeration causes pH rise.

How are you brominating the tub? Do you plan to use bromine tablets?

 

[Firemedic1990]

I’

You overshot the TA. In a hot tub you really want your TA to be below 80ppm, 60ppm is probably optimal. That is because high TA and aeration causes pH rise.

How are you brominating the tub? Do you plan to use bromine tablets?

At setup I use granular bromine & I have tablet floater.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Ok. Are you following the process laid out in the forum’s sticky thread on how to use bromine ?

How do I use Bromine in my spa (or pool)?

Originally Posted by waterbear There is a lot of misinformation on the proper way to use Bromine so I hope this primer is helpful. First, you need to establish a bromide reserve in the water. Bromine tablets can do it by themselves but it can take literally weeks until enough dissolves. Some...

www.troublefreepool.com

Bromine tablets will be acidic in nature and lower TA over time. You should target your TA to be 60-80ppm which means, at times, you might have to add baking soda to increase it. With tablets you have to be mindful of pH and TA.

Tablets do add an additional problem - they add dimethylhydantoin (DMH) to the water. DMH can cause overstabilization of bromine which renders it ineffective as a sanitizer once DMH levels get too high. Depending on how quickly you go through tablets, you will only get 2-3 months out of the water in your tub before you have to drain and refill.

As a suggestion, I would advise you to invest in a small submersible pump for your hot tub. The cheaper, smaller ones can cost around $30 or so and they are very useful for quickly draining a tub when needed. You would not need anything larger than a 1/4 horsepower pump and there are smaller ones with garden hose adapters on them to make them convenient to use.

 

[Firemedic1990]

I have been following that, I use the 3 step method because sometimes I’m away for a couple of days at a time for work. (My husband doesn’t mess with caring for my “toy’s”.) It has been very informative, thanks. I am teaching 2 of my sons about caring for them so they can help when that happens.

I change my water about every 3 months, plus it gets topped off pretty frequently because when my kids use it there is usually a lot of splash out.

We have one of those pumps but I wasn’t sure where it was last night.

Thanks for all of your help.