TA - important to adjust or not?

[ta2dwonderwoman]

I read in pool school:

There are two reasons to lower your total alkalinity (TA) right away, because you want to slow down the rate that the PH rises, or if high TA is contributing to a high calcium saturation index (CSI) which puts you at risk of calcium scaling. You shouldn't lower TA just to reach a target number. Make sure you actually have one of the above issues before lowering your TA.

But then i read in water balance for swg's:

Adjust your Total Alkalinity to 60-80 ppm. (This is IMPORTANT!)

So is it vital to have TA between 60-80 now that I have an swg or no?? mine is 110 right now and has pretty much been there from the day I filled and does not seem to drift down. do I need to make a concentrated effort to get that number down or just wait and see what happens? swg is not on just yet, been putting liquid chlorine in for the moment, but I think it is warm enough now that I may be able to go ahead and get the swg fired up in the next day or so.

Also, I did have quite a bit of white buildup on the plate in my swg at the end of the season also...wondering if there is something out of whack or is that just the nature of the beast?




FC - 5.5
CC or TC - 0
pH - 7.5
TA - 110
CH - ?
CYA - 70

water temp is 74 - heat pump is now on and working on getting that temp up a bit hopefully!

 

[pooldv]

It is pretty important for a couple of reasons.

#1
TA at 110 will push your pH up. SWGs also push your pH up. So, you will spend more time lowering your pH. The good news is that every time you add muriatic acid to lower pH you will also be lowering TA and eventually your TA will get down below 80 anyway.

#2 and more important
TA above 80, and especially above 100, in a saltwater pool that is also constantly pushing your pH up will create a good environment to build up scale in your SWG cell. The combo of high TA and high pH will scale your cell quickly as you have noticed. Getting your TA below 80 and keeping your pH at 7.8 or lower will significantly help reduce scaling in your SWG cell.

 

[ta2dwonderwoman]

Kind of along the lines of what I was thinking based on everything I've read that I wanted to make sure that I'm pulling the right pieces together for my current setup... thanks a bunch for the input