pH up & down

[jconnpac]

My pH is up & down since I started doing a better job testing. Pool is not used much, just twice this week by our 2 grandchildren for about an hour twice per day. We have a waterfall we run so it doesn’t keep stagnant water in the well where the water pumps out (poor design). Waterfall has its own pump…not sure of horsepower because the label is peeled off.
I’ve used a little over a gallon of 14.5% Muriatic acid over the course of the last few days because of TA & pH being high. I had the pH at about 7.3 yesterday but up to 8.2+ today. All we did was run the waterfall about an hour yesterday.
African sumac in our yard are dropping a lot of leaves this time of year, but we did a good job of keeping the pool clear of leaves this week.
Will I just need to keep adding muriatic acid until TA and pH normalize and stabilize?

Test results and photos of waterfall below.

Thank you

Test Results 06-07-2024 @ 09:11 AM
------------------------------------------
Free Chlorine: 7.0
Combined Chlorine: 1.0
pH: 8.2
Total Alkalinity: 130
Calcium Hardness: 375
CYA: 40
Temperature: 87°F
CSI: 0.92

 

[jconnpac]

Interestingly, this morning our pool guy’s test strip showed pH 7.2 and TA 90

 

[Deb04]

Believe your test kit over test strips.

Children playing & waterfall both increase pH, esp with your high TA. Just use acid as you have been. As your TA drops, the pH will not rise as frequently. You can buy twice as strong muriatic acid that is generally the same price. Most ppl here use that bc it's so much cheaper. I'm usually all about saving money and reducing plastic use, but after using the strong stuff once, I'm perfectly willing to pay the extra for the weak stuff. Your decision.

When was your pool plastered. I have a vinyl pool so I don't know much about it, but I do know from reading here that new plaster will raise pH for a while. I can't define "a while", but I'm sure someone else can.

BTW, how do you get your grandkids out of the pool after an hour? When my granddaughter, 9, comes over, she lives in the pool. She even eats in the pool. I'm just thankful that she gets out for the bathroom.

 

[jconnpac]

Believe your test kit over test strips.

Children playing & waterfall both increase pH, esp with your high TA. Just use acid as you have been. As your TA drops, the pH will not rise as frequently. You can buy twice as strong muriatic acid that is generally the same price. Most ppl here use that bc it's so much cheaper. I'm usually all about saving money and reducing plastic use, but after using the strong stuff once, I'm perfectly willing to pay the extra for the weak stuff. Your decision.

When was your pool plastered. I have a vinyl pool so I don't know much about it, but I do know from reading here that new plaster will raise pH for a while. I can't define "a while", but I'm sure someone else can.

BTW, how do you get your grandkids out of the pool after an hour? When my granddaughter, 9, comes over, she lives in the pool. She even eats in the pool. I'm just thankful that she gets out for the bathroom.

Ha, one of them won’t get out unless we make him…the other gets hungry and asks to get out.

Appreciate the advice. Not newly plastered, we bought the house 3 years ago. Had it drained and cleaned last October