Neighbor with Yellow water after adding acid

[DougM]

Hi there,
My neighbor has a yellow pool. It turned yellow after adding acid -he added 6 gallons of muratic acid to a 33 ft. above ground pool, which I"m guessing got his PH down to somewhere in the 5's, but my taylor kit wasn't able to measure.

I'm going to break out my borax and help him get his PH back up. He said his chlorine is high as well, but I didn't test that b/c I was too worried about the low PH.

Thoughts on best approach to get things back into line? Also are there any thoughts about why it turned yellow? It's super clear...just yellow.

Thanks,
Doug

PS, on a side note my 35k gal inground is crystal clear and blue...ready for swimming for me and the neighbor :-)

[BigDave]

6 Gallons of 31.5%?!! Like a hundred pounds of Borax. half that for 15.7% YIKES! Hurry! There will be no liner left. Don't really know - Very complex to calculate pH.

[DougM]

Is the liner at risk?

[DougM]

Oh - and yes, it was 31.5%. I ran over with my 4 boxes of spare Arm and Hammer washing soda and got them in (12lbs) and he's off to walmart for a crap-ton of borax.

[Watermom]

Oh yeah his liner is at risk. Looks like this is his project for the day. It's gonna take a lot of Borax. Why on Earth did he add so much acid?

[DougM]

Its what the pool store told him.... he's got 12 lbs of my stuff and 20 lbs borax in. He needs to find more as he cleared out walmart.

[PoolDoc]

Tell him to buy "Washing soda" if he can't find borax. But, be careful. Washing soda will raise the pH more than borax. So he should be adding 2 boxes of washing soda or 4 boxes of borax via the skimmer, waiting 30 minutes to an hour; testing and then repeating if he sees no change in pH. Once he sees the SLIGHTEST increase in pH, he needs to drop back to 1 box of washing soda or 2 boxes of borax . . . OR he will overshoot and end up with high pH.

[waterbear]

Its what the pool store told him

Probably from a computer print out because the TA was high. THIS is a reason I do not like computerized pool store testing (and I have done my share of it and crossed out their print out instructions and wrote what they were REALLY supposed to do.)

[CarlD]

Hope Doug is UPHILL from his neighbor.....