New Plaster Start Up Bi-Carb - Last Leg

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Your pH would have gone up and will continue to go up even if you had added nothing. Plaster curing causes calcium hydroxide to form and that is an exothermic reaction that creates a net pH rise.

You do understand that rising pH is inevitable in all pools (unless you use an acidic form of chlorine)?

In the case of the bicarb startup, your pH rise will be extreme because your pool water is over 16x out of balance with the air surrounding it.

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Kouri said:
The pH was obtained with a meter. All baking soda already added, did not add calcium. I'm now completely confused about the bi-carb system but it's done. It seems to be well understood that bi-carb will raise pH and it did that. We added MA last night and will re-test once the sun rises.
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What are you confused about?

Bicarb only causes a slight pH rise but what it does do is raise the total alkalinity (carbonic acid in the form of dissolved C02). As the C02 outgasses it is essentially removing an acidic source from the water which causes a rise pH. The higher the alkalinity, the higher and faster the pH can/will climb.

From this point forward I would encourage you to plug all of your testing numbers into Pool Math and use that to maintain a CSI between +0.3- +0.5.
 
Yes, using pool math. We are now holding steady at 7.8. I just brushed and there no dust of any kind -- the pool is crystal clear. The weir is not working properly because too much material is restricting its ability to move and down -- PB will fix. Otherwise, it looks stunning compared to where we started. Will retest all parameters and add chemicals as needed -- keeping in mind mfg warranty
 
Kouri said:
Yes, using pool math. We are now holding steady at 7.8. I just brushed and there no dust of any kind -- the pool is crystal clear. The weir is not working properly because too much material is restricting its ability to move and down -- PB will fix. Otherwise, it looks stunning compared to where we started. Will retest all parameters and add chemicals as needed -- keeping in mind mfg warranty
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Your pH will not stay at 7.8 for very long, in fact I would expect to see it at or near 8 by this time tomorrow. With the TA elevated that high you need to make it a priority to check the pH daily. Scale is the last thing you want on your new surface.
 
Thanks everyone for good words. Still working on getting TA down and adding more MA this morning. PB instructions are adding some chlorine day-3 which will be late today so we'll start that too. Not at the same time as MA though.
 

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Ok Gurus I seriously need some help. Now have pH 6.9, TA 240, CH 175. Chlorine not yet added. What should I do?

PB said get pH 6.8 - 7.2, TA 80 then adjust CH to 150. Can I keep adding MA (pool store kit anything below 6.8 no MA and their kit registered below 6.8). Should I be worried about something horrible happening?:confused:
 
Don't add anymore MA until the pH rises. pH needs to be in the 7s. If you want to speed it up you can use aeration. Even pointing the eyeballs on the returns up to break the surface can help.
 
Are you going with the bicarb startup or are you going to take the pool builders advice? The two greatly contradict.

With the bicarb startup you maintain an elevated pH and TA for 2-3 weeks while the plaster is in its initial curing phase. It looks like you are trying to quickly lower the TA (which is not a quick process) and that is defeating the purpose of raising the TA to begin with.

Apparently your builder isn't familiar with the bicarb process after all.
 
PB gave me standard instruction sheet sheet so let's set that aside. They are kinda' familiar with bi-carb and left the decision to me.

So given where I am now it seems the pH is too low and TA too high. I can live with that. I have been following PoolMath for adding MA and ended up where I am now -- I'm not "trying" to lower TA. So is PoolMath being too aggressive with MA? Is there a parameter I'm missing or not understanding? Do I add 0 bleach and follow PoolMath? There is no plaster dust.
 
Your target TA number is set to the recommended level so pool math is telling you how much acid it will take to lower your TA to that recommended range. TA cannot be lowered all at once, it must be done through adding acid and aerating to raise the pH high enough to justify adding more acid.

Are you not doing the bicarb startup any longer? All you need to do is maintain the pH around the 7.8 range and leave the TA alone.

With your current TA your pH should rise fairly quickly. If you have a source of aeration (spillway or water feature) you can run that for a few hours to speed the process.
 
Ok -- I understand and will set target in PoolMath to 7.8. This is a small pool so aeration is set to max and has been running continuously, I will leave it as is. Yes I'm doing bi-carb or trying to but panic sets in from time to time. :-(
I will do as you suggest and let the pH go up. Once it exceeds 7.8 I will do as PoolMath advises. Chlorine?

(Thanks -- don't give up on me yet!)
Susan
 
Susan,

Pool Math will only tell you how to do what you told it you wanted to do :scratch: Make sense?

Yours should look like this:



PH: Do not add acid until the pH reaches 8

TA: Your current level is fine and it will slowly drop each time you add acid. That is perfectly normal

CH: Consider raising it to 200

Chlorine: If I recall you have trichlor pucks? If that's the case, put two in a floater and put that into the pool. You really don't need to worry the chlorine level as long as there are pucks in the floater.
 

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