Ph or Alkalinity...which should i fix first

[JKashJ]

We've just started working on our water quality last Saturday and we shocked the you know what out of it for a week. The FC is off the chart, but the pool went from a murky green pond to a deep, cloudy blue. I've got an Aquarite salt generator and i had to add close to 400 lbs of salt to bring it up to 3400.

So, Alk and Ph are way off...both are very low. According to the calculator, with my pool holding 36500 gallons, I need to add 29.2 oz of Sodium Carbonate(soda ash?)..edit...read a bit more and can this be Borax instead? to bring the Ph up .2. So if i'm at 6.8 and i want to get to 7.4, i'll need to add approx. 87oz of this to get it up that level.

My Alk is 0 and it looks like i need to get up to 80ppm. According to the calc, i need to add almost 40lbs of Sodium Bicarbonate(baking soda?) to get this up to 80ppm.

So, does this sound right and which is most important to fix first. Also, it seems like i remember reading that alkilinity can be kept lower with SWGs.

Any suggestions on this would be great.

Thanks,

Kash

[JohnT]

Don't trust your pH reading while your pool is at shock level. I wouldn't adjust anything until the chlorine is back down to a more normal level.

[aylad]

I second what John T said.....and when the chlorine is back down to norm and you test again, I would fix the pH first. The higher your alk is, the more stuff you'll have to add to get the pH to move.

Janet

[JKashJ]

John and Janet,

Thanks for the advice on this. I'll wait until the Chlorine is down to a workable level prior to doing anything else.

Does a high chlorine level create cloudiness in the water too? I've turned by SWG down to 40% now and the water coming out of the returns is white'r(yeah, made that up...:-) than the water in the pool. You can actually see clouds of it coming out of the returns and moving into the pool. I doubt this is salt, but there still could be some of the bottom being pulled into the main drain. I can't tell as i can't see the bottom...:-)

Kash

[CarlD]

I have to disagree. While high chlorine DOES affect pH, it usually makes it look high, not low. I would add borax (not soda ash) until pH passes 6.9. If it's above there, you can then wait for lower chlorine levels to get a truer reading, which may STILL be below 6.9--the danger point for vinyl pools.

[aylad]

While high chlorine DOES affect pH, it usually makes it look high, not low.


True, unless they are using strips or cheaper OTO test to test the water, AND the chlorine is exceptionally high...I have seen it happen in my own pool where the chlorine can get high enough to bleach out even the OTO test.

Janet

[JKashJ]

I am using Walmart strips, they're AquaChem 6way strips. I did dump in a 4lb box of Borax last night and i wasn't here at all today, but my wife said that it cleared up considerably. Hopefully the ph came up to a more workable level. I'm going down to test in just a bit.

[aylad]

Do yourself a favor and invest in a good, drop-based kit. The strips may be okay for ball-parking, but are not reliable enough to balance water with. I still think you need to let the chlorine come down first before retesting your pH, ESPECIALLY now that we know you're using strips.

Janet

[JKashJ]

I noticed that there are some who sell those on here...any recommendations?

[aylad]

Ben's kit is no longer available--that's the one we've recommended in the past. Taylor's K-2006 is very similar, and is available online or at many pool stores. Duraleigh, one of the posters at the troublefreepools site also sells a kit similar to Ben's.

Janet

[CarlD]

Leslie's on-line sells their FAS-DPD Service Test Kit--it's the same as the Taylor 2006

[chem geek]

The least expensive Taylor K-2006 kit I've seen online is here (https://asp5.secure-shopping.com/spspools/details.asp?prodid=1259&cat=1200&path=). A kit in a similar spirit of Ben's kit in that it has more logical quantities of reagents and has 36% more volume of tests (so is comparably priced to the K-2006 kit above) is the TF100 from tftestkits.com here (http://www.tftestkits.com/). The TF100 has somewhat different contents as described here (http://www.troublefreepool.com/viewtopic.php?p=28314#28314). They are both excellent kits.

Richard

[JKashJ]

Thanks for the great info...i'll order one this weekend and move a bit closer to understanding what i'm doing...;-0

[steveinaz]

I noticed that there are some who sell those on here...any recommendations?

Leslie Pool, get the Taylor:

http://www.lesliespool.com/browse/Home/Water-Testing/Test-Kits/Chlorine-FAS-DPD-Service-Test-Kit/D/30100/P/1:100:4000:400000/I/81329

Best 64 bucks you'll ever spend.

[vanduse1]

Shelf life of kits? I am approaching the second year with the kit I bought from Ben. I would assume that the chemicals do go bad (Especially the dpd powder). Should I dump the whole kit and look at Trouble Free or Leslies? Thanks!

[aylad]

If you've kept the reagents in a cool, dry area, then you can use them for several seasons. If your dpd powder isn't black and in clumps, it's usually still good, too. I have a bottle of the calcium reagents that is from my original PS233 kit, and they are still measuring accurately, when compared with new reagents.

Janet