Problem Ph

[punkjay]

i'm a pool technician and one problem i am stumped with is with only a few swimming pools the pH is always low and no matter what method of trying to correct it nothing works. The next visit i turn up to the customers pool ie. every 2 weeks i go to test the water its always sitting around 6.8 or bellow. The chlorine, alkalinity, calcium hardness etc are within the required levels. The pools have some form of heating ie. electric heat pump or solar and most of them are fiberglass pools and one vinyl pool that are all using tri chlor tablets and the water is town supply, has any of those things have anything to contribute to this problem? does anyone have any suggestions?

[chem geek]

Trichlor is very acidic, especially when accounting for chlorine usage (that is, when chlorine gets used up from sunlight or oxidizing organics, this is also acidic). If a pool is using 2 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) per day and having this added by Trichlor tabs, then for every 10,000 gallons it takes about 2-1/2 3" 8-ounce tablets/pucks of Trichlor per week (to get the 14 ppm FC) and this will lower the pH from 7.5 to 7.06 assuming one starts with 120 ppm TA and 30 ppm CYA. Also, for every 10 ppm FC added by Trichlor, it also increases Cyanuric Acid (CYA) by 6 ppm.

So, depending on the chlorine usage per day, it is not surprising for the pH to be dropping rapidly. If you raise the TA level higher, then this will increase the amount of carbon dioxide outgassing and that can help counter the drop in pH since outgassing of carbon dioxide raises pH with no change in TA. Even if you have the TA at 120 ppm, if the CYA level is very high than some of this TA is from CYA which means less is in the form of carbonates that would help counter the pH rise (by outgassing carbon dioxide). The pools in question probably do not have water aeration features that would help outgas the carbon dioxide.

Though increasing the TA may help the pH situation, the increase in CYA means that the chlorine will be less effective so if you don't use a regular weekly algaecide (PolyQuat 60 or a phosphate remover), these pools will risk getting algae. To prevent algae growth by chlorine alone requires the FC level to be at least 7.5% of the CYA level at all times (this rule works up to a phosphate level of around 3000 ppb which is quite high).

Richard

[punkjay]

The TA is around 100 ppm and CYA is at 70ppm so is that a problem? i just cant understand that this happens to only a few pools as 90% of the pools i look after are fine and have no problems with the chemistry.

[chem geek]

Trichlor is the primary cause due to its acidity, but the other pools that don't have as much pH drop probably have more aeration. If you use Trichlor and your pool is covered, then the pH will drop the most. If it's uncovered, it will drop less. If there are aerating water features such as waterfalls, spillovers, fountains, aerated jets, etc., then it will fall the least and could even rise if the TA is high enough. The outgassing of carbon dioxide causes the pH to rise with no change in TA so this offsets the drop in pH from the Trichlor -- the net result being a slow drop in TA over time.

So are there differences in the aeration amounts in these different pools as described above? Also, if the pools with low pH have higher chlorine demand (ppm FC per day), then that would mean a greater lowering in pH. With the high CYA of 70 ppm, there shouldn't be a high demand of chlorine from sunlight, but there could very well be nascent algae blooming since I'll bet the Free Chlorine (FC) level isn't a minimum of 7.5% of the CYA level or 5.2 ppm. So to try and keep up with chlorine demand, such pools may be using more Trichlor tabs -- an endless cycle that will only get worse as the CYA climbs.

The only other differences that are sometimes seen are new pools or pools where the plaster has been redone will have a tendency to rise in pH, especially strong in the first months, and using Trichlor offsets that so in such pools you wouldn't notice the acidity of Trichlor. I assume that most of the pools you service are older, however, and have not been replastered recently.

[waterbear]

Try raising the TA to around 120-150 ppm and see if that helps. As chemgeek said, trichlor is acidic and will lower the pH and fiberglass pools have a non reactive surface so they don't affect pH like plaster pools do.