pH escalation is driving me crazy!

[sdd]

I’ve been in my current house for a bit over a year. The pool was built maybe 2-3 years ago. In all the time I’ve had this pool, the pH level rises extremely quickly, while very other metric seems fine. I have a chlorinator, and chlorine levels are fine. Alkalinity is 120. To keep pH stable at anything between 7.2 and 7.6, I have to add 250ml of acid every day! It’s just crazy. Without adding acid, it goes up .2 a day. As an experiment to see if it would stabilise, I didnt add acid for a while and it got to 8.5 before I relented. If it makes any difference, I live near the ocean.

Pool shops just shrug their shoulders and say “some pools are just like that”. Is there anything specific I should be looking into to alleviate this problem?

Thanks for any pointers.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Are you running water features or have a spillover spa? Those will raise your pH.
Your TA is too high- if you lower it in steps down to 7.2 it will slow the pH rise. A high TA "pulls up" your pH.

Lower Total Alkalinity

A lower Total Alkalinity level can help a pool owner stabalize their pH increase. We'll explain how to lower TA with a little help from muriatic acid.

www.troublefreepool.com

Welcome to Trouble Free Pools Always happy to help.

Maddie

 

[sdd]

Are you running water features or have a spillover spa? Those will raise your pH.
Your TA is too high- if you lower it in steps down to 7.2 it will slow the pH rise. A high TA "pulls up" your pH.

Lower Total Alkalinity

A lower Total Alkalinity level can help a pool owner stabalize their pH increase. We'll explain how to lower TA with a little help from muriatic acid.

www.troublefreepool.com

Welcome to Trouble Free Pools Always happy to help.

Maddie

Thanks very much for the reply. No, I don’t have any water features or spillovers. I recently added a load of buffer to raise TA (at the suggestion of a pool shop, argh). Previously it was around 45, but I was still having problems with pH increasing rapidly.

I presume I can just keep adding acid every day until the TA comes down and see what happens from there, although TA seems to come down extremely slowly after I add acid. What do you recommend the TA should be again? You said 7.2, but I’m not aware of that being a measure of TA.

Thanks again!

 

[ajw22]

Welcome to TFP.

Leave the TA alone and let it find its natural equilibrium with pH.

Keep your pH around 7.8, do not lower it below 7.6, and don’t adjust it until it hits 8.2.

Needing to add acid about every third day is not unusual for some pools.

PH TA Relationship - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[sdd]

Welcome to TFP.

Leave the TA alone and let it find its natural equilibrium with pH.

Keep your pH around 7.8, do not lower it below 7.6, and don’t adjust it until it hits 8.2.

Needing to add acid about every third day is not unusual for some pools.

PH TA Relationship - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

OK then, I can do that! Fascinating reading, thank you. I need to scour this site more, obviously! So it’s OK to not keep the pH within the “traditional” 7.2-7.6 range? Presumably keeping it around 7.8 will keep my pH rise more manageable. I expect my TA will take some time to come down by itself from its relatively high level (curse you, pool shop). Is it worth doing something about that with some other sort of chemical addition?

Thanks again.

 

[PoolStored]

at the suggestion of a pool shop, argh

curse you, pool shop

Someone call me? Looks like it, but the team have you covered. Sorry for your experience, but it is not uncommon.

You only have two choices, let it come down over time as Allen indicated, or use the link that Maddie gave you. There are no other chemicals you should use to lower TA.

 

[ajw22]

So it’s OK to not keep the pH within the “traditional” 7.2-7.6 range?

I think you will find TFPC Methods deviate from "traditional" pools store recommendations as they are based on actual science and experience rather then last Century thinking and what boosts sales.

Is it worth doing something about that with some other sort of chemical addition?

Really no.

 

[sdd]

Someone call me? Looks like it, but the team have you covered. Sorry for your experience, but it is not uncommon.

You only have two choices, let it come down over time as Allen indicated, or use the link that Maddie gave you. There are no other chemicals you should use to lower TA.

I think you will find TFPC Methods deviate from "traditional" pools store recommendations as they are based on actual science and experience rather then last Century thinking and what boosts sales.


Really no.

Ok, I’ll try the “add acid at 8.2 to bring it down to 7.8” method and see how quickly my TA comes down over a couple of weeks. Does the “add acid to bring it down to 7.2, then aerate and repeat” method work more quickly too bring down TA?

 

[ajw22]

Does the “add acid to bring it down to 7.2, then aerate and repeat” method work more quickly too bring down TA?

Yes.

 

[PoolStored]

Does the “add acid to bring it down to 7.2, then aerate and repeat” method work more quickly too bring down TA?

Yes, as Allen indicated. The trick is to make LOTS of VERY SMALL BUBBLES. Lower pH to 7.0, then monitor, when it gets to 7.4, lower again to 7.0. Reason is that CO2 outgasses at the highest rate between these pH levels. Follow the guide, 7.0-7.4, lots of small bubbles is the quickest way to lower TA.

I can lower TA by 10 in 12 hours in a 30K pool with this (see pic). I attach it to a sump pump, put the sump pump in a bucket and put it in the shallow end. 1.5" PVC, caps with five 1/4" holes in each.

Aerator.jpg

• PoolStored
• Sep 11, 2022
• 2

 

[Jimrahbe]

sdd,

While adding acid over time will reduce your TA, I find it easier to add a lot of acid over a short period of time. It will reduce the TA in a couple of days. I have a saltwater pool and run my TA at 50 to 60 ppm.

Here is what I do when I want to reduce my TA... (I no longer have to do this as my TA is now pretty stable..)

1. Measure TA and pH.
2. Add enough acid to drop the pH to 7.0
3. Constantly run some device to generate aeration. (See aerator in above post)
4. Wait about two hours and repeat the process.. Over and over..

At first the TA will barely change, but as time goes on. the change gets larger and larger.

When I used to do this, it would take me two full days.. from morning till night.. I did nothing over night except run the aeration.

As my last test I would get the TA a little lower than I wanted as it will initially quickly come up.. So, if I wanted a TA of 60, I'd reduce the TA to 50 and call it a day.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[cwswifty]

As mentioned earlier there is nothing wrong with letting the pH drift up to and hopefully hover for a while in the high 7’s. Only thing I would add is to verify that your other levels when combined with your pH gives you a good CSI.

 

[sdd]

Thanks everyone for the amazing replies. This forum is fantastic. Now I’m off to read about CSI…