Low Ph High Ta

[2dub]

I'm looking for some advice. I'm in a complete PH / TA puzzle.

MY TA is high, my ph is low.

Fixing one throws the other off. My water is slightly cloudy now. Never had this problem before.

[PaulR]

It's possible to raise pH without chemicals, by aerating the water. According to chem geek this will cause outgassing of CO2 which will raise the pH (CO2 dissolved in water is acidic). There's a fuller description here.

--paulr

[chem geek]

I'll bet that you are using Trichlor pucks/tabs which are very acidic, but to raise the pH you are using pH Up which raises both the pH and the TA quite a bit. So you end up with the TA getting too high and if it's quite high then the water can get cloudy if other water parameters are also high (such as Calcium Hardness). However, I suspect that your cloudy water may be an impending algae bloom from the high Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level accumulated from the use of Trichlor.

There are several options here in addition to lowering the TA via the procedure that Paul linked to. One is that you can use 20 Mule Team Borax instead of pH Up to raise the pH. It will raise the TA by half as much as pH Up. Another option is to increase aeration, but that's not always easy to do. Another option is to use less Trichlor and more unstabilized chlorine such as chlorinating liquid or bleach (or, if the CH is low, Cal-Hypo).

Read the Pool School for more info on how to maintain your pool.

[imnay]

I'll bet that you are using Trichlor pucks/tabs which are very acidic, but to raise the pH you are using pH Up which raises both the pH and the TA quite a bit. So you end up with the TA getting too high and if it's quite high then the water can get cloudy if other water parameters are also high (such as Calcium Hardness). However, I suspect that your cloudy water may be an impending algae bloom from the high Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level accumulated from the use of Trichlor.

There are several options here in addition to lowering the TA via the procedure that Paul linked to. One is that you can use 20 Mule Team Borax instead of pH Up to raise the pH. It will raise the TA by half as much as pH Up. Another option is to increase aeration, but that's not always easy to do. Another option is to use less Trichlor and more unstabilized chlorine such as chlorinating liquid or bleach (or, if the CH is low, Cal-Hypo).

Read the Pool School for more info on how to maintain your pool.

We use trichlor 3 inch tabs - have for over 20 ears - NEVER a problem - EVER.

Our personal experience is that you need to adjust out of whack levels slowly - like over a few days.

Sure, if PH is low and you add too much bicarb of soda at one time you negatively affect the Alkalinity and vice versa - so take your time.

Recently our pool PH and Alkalinity had both slipped a bit low - we had to go out of town for a few days and couldn't monitor the pool levels and there had been a heavy rain day.

We have about 25k gallons so I usually add about 5 to six lbs of bicarb of soda to start raising the PH and about two hours later I add a few lbs of soda ash to raise the Alkalinity and if I am patient and don't try to force a correction I can easily adjust both PH and Alkalinity at the same time and all is back to perfect in a couple of days at themost - no sweat.

Our personal exprience is that when we use the correct amounts and patiently take two or three days to correct levels we can raise both PH and Alkalinity at the same time - only when we get impatient and add too much of the corrective stuff do we get a bad result.

Once water is stabilized if one level or another gets a bit out of whack it can be corrected very easily and relatively quickly. This is why we take the two or three minutes to test levels daily during swimming season so we can be alerted to any corrections that need to be made. Another example, yesterday afternoon I found PH had dropped lower than optimum - I added like five lbs. of bicarb of soda - next morning test showed PH back in perfect range and adding the B-of-Soda hadn't affected the Alkalinity at all.

Ain't nothin to it if you religiously keep at it! IMO

[chem geek]

We have about 25k gallons so I usually add about 5 to six lbs of bicarb of soda to start raising the PH and about two hours later I add a few lbs of soda ash to raise the Alkalinity and if I am patient and don't try to force a correction I can easily adjust both PH and Alkalinity at the same time and all is back to perfect in a couple of days at themost - no sweat.

See some of your other earlier posts where you said the opposite -- using baking soda to raise the alkalinity (which is correct).