Hi all,
I'm the happy owner of a Bullfrog X7, purchased last year. A friend turned me on to this site, and I'm now trying to get an actual handle on my water chemistry instead of just shocking the tub when the water gets stinky. I've purchased a TF-100 kit, and did an Aahsome purge/fresh fill two days ago. I'm going through the balancing instructions in the stickied Chlorine post, and have some questions:
How does TA differ from just being a high pH? Are they different ways of expressing the same info? Initial tests yielded a TA of 110ppm when fresh, so I went to the pool/hot tub store in search of dry or muriatic acid per the sticky. They didn't have any of that, and instead suggested I use a bottle of "pH Down." Was this a mistake? I had to add a bunch of it yesterday (over the course of several hours) to get my TA down to 50ppm. It took way more than it said it would on the bottle, but I eventually got there. So, yay! However, when I tested the pH after that it was 7.8. Is there any other way to get the pH of the tub down to 7.5 without further lowering my TA below 50ppm? I haven't moved onto the later steps in the sticky yet (Chlorine and CYA.) I have one of those Bullfrog SmartChlor inserts doing Chlorine duty for now that's nearing the end of its life, but should still have some oomph in it.
Thanks in advance!
I'm the happy owner of a Bullfrog X7, purchased last year. A friend turned me on to this site, and I'm now trying to get an actual handle on my water chemistry instead of just shocking the tub when the water gets stinky. I've purchased a TF-100 kit, and did an Aahsome purge/fresh fill two days ago. I'm going through the balancing instructions in the stickied Chlorine post, and have some questions:
How does TA differ from just being a high pH? Are they different ways of expressing the same info? Initial tests yielded a TA of 110ppm when fresh, so I went to the pool/hot tub store in search of dry or muriatic acid per the sticky. They didn't have any of that, and instead suggested I use a bottle of "pH Down." Was this a mistake? I had to add a bunch of it yesterday (over the course of several hours) to get my TA down to 50ppm. It took way more than it said it would on the bottle, but I eventually got there. So, yay! However, when I tested the pH after that it was 7.8. Is there any other way to get the pH of the tub down to 7.5 without further lowering my TA below 50ppm? I haven't moved onto the later steps in the sticky yet (Chlorine and CYA.) I have one of those Bullfrog SmartChlor inserts doing Chlorine duty for now that's nearing the end of its life, but should still have some oomph in it.
Thanks in advance!
