Winter water balancing new plaster

[ajw22]

Yeah I hear ya. I guess bottom line am I hurting or helping by adding some MA and circulating now?

It is a futile exercise.

You are focusing on the wrong thing. Your CSI is fine. And as the water temperature drops your CSI will drop and become more fine.

In fact depending on how much you lower your pH with low water temperature your CSI will move towards aggressive water which is more damaging to your plaster.

High pH with low water temperatures is fine.

Open your pool in the Spring before the water warms up much.

 

[key1cc]

Yeah I hear ya. I guess bottom line am I hurting or helping by adding some MA and circulating now?

I feel your pain. I am going through a very similar thought process right now. If your curious my Thread is called. 'Postponing Closing/Winterizing to the absolute last moment". I actually have a ton of time on my hands, so I don't mind opening up my straps and dropping pumps in to circulate. I actually now use 2 pumps in opposite corners of the pool....and based on my testing, the acid I add is fully mixed in ~ 30 minutes (in about 13000 gallons of lowered pool water). How do I know this you ask? Well, I use an Apera 700 pH meter where I regularly calibrate the electrode and use test standards to confirm it is good to the advertised 2 decimal places. For example: Initially, I dropped in the pumps and mixed for several hours, and I took the pH from different areas in the pool. Both areas tested at 8.65pH. I added 2.5 cups of muriatic acid, and I tested in the same 2 areas after ~1 min and I got vastly different values. I tested again after 15 minutes, and the values were both 7.64 pH I tested again after 30 minutes, and both values remained at 7.64. This tells me that really by 15 minutes the water and acid was completely mixed however I prefer to do all my testing now at 30 minutes to be on the safe side. Yes, that was a lot of pH testing to teach me how, when, and where to test but using an accurately calibrated pH meter makes the testing quick and easy and no guessing of the "shade of pink". Now that I have confidence the acid gets mixed in, I only test pH once and in one area (after mixing 30 minutes) when I occasionally check. I have a lot more to say but I don't want to hijack your thread. If you have questions, you will probably find the answers in my thread.... if not feel free to ask in either thread.