Yes another PH vs TA Thread.... Need some guidance please..

[RelaxIN]

Good Morning Guys/Gals..

Another beautiful morning here on the East Coast and I wanted to wish everyone a nice good morning as I'm having my cup of coffee and reviewing my chemical readings throughout the week. I want to see if I can get a little better understanding as to what happened here.

First the specs on the Pool:
- In-ground, Vinyl Liner
- 23,000 Gallon
- Hayward DE Filter W/ 1.5 HP Superpump
- No SPA

** Initially when I opened up the pool in early June, the PH was very low. To the point that I had to add add about 18 boxes of Borax to get the PH back up to normal. Now everything looks good with the exception of the TA. Now (According to the Pool Calculator), I'm being told the Lower the PH back down to 7.2 and aerate it to raise it back up. The funny thing is, according to the Calculator, since the PH is slightly low, its telling me to raise the PH with 1.1lbs of Borax again.

Here are my numbers from the week:
- Water Temp: 85
- FC: 7.71
- PH: 7.5
- TA: 100
- CH: 152
- CYA: 40

Since the numbers aren't that far off, I wanted to get your thoughts..?

Thanks for all of your help..! Rick

 

[domct203]

Good Morning Guys/Gals..

Another beautiful morning here on the East Coast and I wanted to wish everyone a nice good morning as I'm having my cup of coffee and reviewing my chemical readings throughout the week. I want to see if I can get a little better understanding as to what happened here.

First the specs on the Pool:
- In-ground, Vinyl Liner
- 23,000 Gallon
- Hayward DE Filter W/ 1.5 HP Superpump
- No SPA

** Initially when I opened up the pool in early June, the PH was very low. To the point that I had to add add about 18 boxes of Borax to get the PH back up to normal. Now everything looks good with the exception of the TA. Now (According to the Pool Calculator), I'm being told the Lower the PH back down to 7.2 and aerate it to raise it back up. The funny thing is, according to the Calculator, since the PH is slightly low, its telling me to raise the PH with 1.1lbs of Borax again.

Here are my numbers from the week:
- Water Temp: 85
- FC: 7.71
- PH: 7.5
- TA: 100
- CH: 152
- CYA: 40

Since the numbers aren't that far off, I wanted to get your thoughts..?

Thanks for all of your help..! Rick

Hello and welcome!

Your TA is fine, and you may find that if your pH tends to rise quickly, lowering it a bit more should help.

Where did you get these test results? None of the recommended test kits will measure FC as 7.71, or CH as 152.

Are those pool $tore results?

 

[DebbieO]

My Ph stays it's most stable with a TA of 100.

 

[Richard320]

The pool calculator is only telling it what you want it to tell you. If you ask it how much acid to get from 7.5 to 7.8 using chemicals, it will give you the dose. It will give you the dose if you want to get to 9.0 pH if you ask it to. It doesn't question the wisdom, it just gives the answer. You chose the target.

Looking at your numbers, I'd say, if the water is clear, leave it alone. Everything is in range. The recommendation for TA is 50-90+. You're at 90+ so leave it alone. If you end up below 50 somehow, you'd chose a target between 50-90 and add to get there.

 

[RelaxIN]

Hello and welcome!

Where did you get these test results? None of the recommended test kits will measure FC as 7.71, or CH as 152.

Are those pool $tore results?

No sir.... those are not pool store results. I have a ColorQ Pro 7 Test Unit.

The pool calculator is only telling it what you want it to tell you. If you ask it how much acid to get from 7.5 to 7.8 using chemicals, it will give you the dose. It will give you the dose if you want to get to 9.0 pH if you ask it to. It doesn't question the wisdom, it just gives the answer. You chose the target.

Looking at your numbers, I'd say, if the water is clear, leave it alone. Everything is in range. The recommendation for TA is 50-90+. You're at 90+ so leave it alone. If you end up below 50 somehow, you'd chose a target between 50-90 and add to get there.

Yes sir, I understand the pool calculator is only telling me the results. My concern was.. .if it told me to put xxxx number Borax in the pool to raise the PH, and I followed the recommendations, why is it now telling me 2 days later, to lower the PH and areate because of the TA. I questioned my paramaters that put in the Pool Calculator.. but from what you are saying, its sounds like I should not worry about the TA if the pool is clear and sparkling...? which it is.

 

[Richard320]

Yes sir, I understand the pool calculator is only telling me the results. My concern was.. .if it told me to put xxxx number Borax in the pool to raise the PH, and I followed the recommendations, why is it now telling me 2 days later, to lower the PH and areate because of the TA. I questioned my paramaters that put in the Pool Calculator.. but from what you are saying, its sounds like I should not worry about the TA if the pool is clear and sparkling...? which it is.

What was the TA a couple days ago? If it was already on the highish end, aeration alone would have driven pH up. You would not have needed Borax which added a little to your TA, but you didn't know that then. Don't get stuck in the pool store mindset that there's a chemical for everything. They'll never look at the numbers and tell you to aerate, because there's no money in that. They'll tell you to raise pH one day and add acid the next. You need to look at things overall. People forget that CYA is acidic and drop pH with acid and then go add CYA which pushes it below the safe zone. Stuff like that. You'll soon get the hang of things by doing your own testing and dosing. It'll click.

Just so you know, pH will continue to rise. When it hits 7.8, knock it back down and the TA will go down a little. Maybe not enough to register on the test -- I'm not sure how fine a ColorQ reads -- but some. Hopefully you'll hit the sweet spot where the pH flatlines for a week or more at a time. Whenever you find that, there's where you want the TA.