Cant seem to raise TA or PH

[drbob101]

My TA is persistant at 50 and ph 6.4-6.8. At first I tried just raising the ph with 2 boxes of borax over a 2 day period with no effect. I then tried raising TA with 10 lbs of Leslies Alkalinity INcreasor which is think is baking soda and its has stayed at 50 after 12 hours.

I have brown staining of white pool fixtures and this happened last year and then went away when I think chemistry got in balance.

It is a 20000 ig vinyl and this is the first year for the new vinyl liner.

CYA is 25 and I plan on adding that when I get TA PH issue resolved.

I opened the pool 2 weeks ago and shocked with liquid bleach and used chlorine granules in a sock in the skimmer for maintainence chlorine levels which show .5ppm now

Any ideas woulld be appreciated.

[CarlD]

Don't worry about T/A for now. When you raise your pH, T/A will go up too.

You can raise your pH with Borax, but I'm guessing you'll need 4-6 boxes of the stuff at least.
You can also use Arm&Hammer Washing Soda (in the yellow box, not the orange one). It's not baking soda and WILL raise your pH and with it your T/A, more than Borax. It's in the laundry section, probably right next to the Borax.

Washing Soda is the same chemical as pH Up! that pool stores sell, only it's a lot cheaper.

But you need to get your pH up NOW, more than anything else, at least to 7.0.

The alkalinity increase is just baking soda.

[Watermom]

After you add either the Borax or the Washing Soda, you don't have to wait hours and hours before adding more. Just give it a couple or 3 hours and then retest and redose as needed. As Carl, said, you want to get that pH up ASAP!!

[drbob101]

The grocery store didnt have the AH Washing Soda and I had two boxes of borax at home. I bought a third and just put all three in and am running the filter and polaris and the pool has turned all milky.

Ill run the filter all night and see what the morning brings and test ph and TA then.

Thank you for the replies.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-oEjIkNrtPjU/T1LkB-we6AI/AAAAAAAABf0/2_FtThk-rr0/s640/IMG00355-20100609-1934.jpg

[Watermom]

OH!!! That is a LOT of Borax added at one time. I hope you don't overshoot your target. It is usually best to add things gradually rather than a huge shot all at one time. Fortunately, your pool is pretty big so hopefully it will put you in range. Please post your testing results in the morning.

BTW -- really nice pool!

[CarlD]

Usually, I'm the pessimist and 'Mom is the optimist, but in this case, with your volume and super-low pH, I think all three boxes will be needed. Testing tomorrow will tell!

[drbob101]

Ok the ph is 8.2 , TA is 60 and there is a lot of undissolved Borax on the bottom and the filter pressure is maxed out. I turned oin the polaris so now I am just mixing up that undissolved Borax but I will need to clean the filter now. Obvioulsy with all that undissolved borax it is very milky now also.

On the steps there is a lt blue precipitate looking deposit. This is a new liner, is this borax doing anything to the liner?

What now do you think?

[drbob101]

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-qBibdfpvK1s/T1LkCIdw9AI/AAAAAAAABf8/XC87PbzHF-c/s640/IMG00356-20100610-0736.jpg

Here is the rinsed off DE from the filter and I would say that that is liner color!! This isn't good.

I dont have a circulate valve on my filter so I left the element out and have the filter running in basically circulate mode now.

[Watermom]

Unfortunately, this is another testiment to the truth of don't do too much too fast. I was afraid that adding that much Borax was gonna overshoot your target. It is always best to go slow with additions of anything. Several small additons that gradually get to a target are most always better than one huge addition. Fortunately, pH of 8.2 is not a dangerous thing and can be easily remedied with the use of some muriatic acid. I would suggest adding some baking soda first however to raise your alk up some before adding any acid.

I've never seen Borax damage a liner, so not sure what to say about that or even that it is actually is from the Borax.

[CarlD]

'Mom is right again!

Since you pH is 8.2 and Borax is on the pool floor, you may want to vacuum it to waste so it doesn't raise your pH any more.

[drbob101]

Thank you for the suggestions.

So you think I should add the soda ash now? Is it best to do that with the filter in a ciruclate mode as I have it now and is this best usually? I do not have a circulate mode filter valve so I have been adding borax in the past through the skimmer directly. I could add the circulate valve if it is better to do it this way or just take my filter element out as it is now and run it. That becomes cumbersome though.

I think I will turn off the filter and let the borax settle and vacuum as Carl suggested. We had some rain yesterday and the pool is a tad high anyway.

Thank you

[PoolDoc]

The mods asked me to take a look at this. I can offer two guesses.

A. Guess #1: It is from your liner. (I don't think this one is correct, but it's simpler than #2.)

Liners vary A LOT in quality, durability, and ink stability (they are PRINTED). I've tried several times to discover a way to distinguish between liners, and haven't found one. Flexible PVC -- such as liners are made off -- is not a 'standard' material. Rather, it's a blend of hard PVC, any one of a number of 'plasticizer' compounds, plus fillers and so forth. In other words, you can think of liner material as more like "soup of the day" rather than USDA prime beef. One is somewhat standardized, the other is not.

The point of all this is that liner reactions to chemicals is unpredictable, and varies not just from one mfg to another, but from liner material lot to liner material lot (each lot is a slightly different "soup of the day".)

I realize that this is not a very satisfying response, but I'm sharing with you what I know I don't know . . . and what I know other people don't know, either. :rolleyes:



B.Guess #2: . . . take a deep breath. This one is complicated. I will walk through it timeline wise, to keep it as simple as possible.

1. You got brown uniform stains on your white goods, from a combination of iron (doesn't take much) in your fill water and high-ish pH in your pool.

2. Your pH got low -- not "balanced" (6.8 is as low as your kit or strip goes meaning your REAL pH was 6.8 OR lower, not that it was 6.8) and (possibly) you added a HEDP based stain remover, resulting in the iron going BACK into your pool water. BUT . . .

3. You have a heater, and the low pH grabbed some copper from your heater and put IT into the pool water

OR

3. You used some copper algicide (or 'mineral' sanitizer, or some other copper based product) in your pool.


4. Meanwhile, you've been using calcium hypochlorite to sanitize (granules in a sock) raising your chlorine but ALSO your calcium and your alkalinity.

5. And, you may have been listening to pool store advice (S. O. P.) to raise your calcium to "balanced" levels.

6. All these resulted in a high calcium, high actual carbonates (can't explain this now) AND low pH, together with dissolved iron and copper in the water.

7. You started adding borax, and your pool turned milky. This happened because you had too much calcium and "carbonics" (my word -- sorta = alkalinity + dissolved CO2) present. When you raised the pH, you started precipitating calcium carbonate, iron hydroxide or iron carbonate AND copper carbonate . . . which is robin's egg blue. Ironically, something very like this process is used in water treatment and is called "Lime softening". (To soften means, in water treatment, to reduce calcium). Under certain circumstances (like using borax, instead of lime) you can lower BOTH calcium and "TA", while raising the pH.

8. The precipitated calcium carbonates adsorbed the iron (not much, fortunately) and the copper (a lot, apparently) turning the backwash blue.

So . . . the question is, have you added copper, or do you have a heater? If the answer to either is yes, odds are that my Guess #2 is right.

If so,you need to
filter a lot,
chlorinate with bleach,
keep your filter backwashed,
NOT remove the borax,
and start adding acid AFTER your pool is clear and AFTER your filter stops removing cloudy junk. (You WANT to remove that excess copper and iron!)


Meanwhile, ignore everything except your chlorine and your pH, till you get to 7.6 or so.

Then repost test results.

There. I've told you all I don't know about this.

Ben
"PoolDoc"

[drbob101]

Thank you so much for chiming in Ben!

I do have a heater and have not put anything in the pool except bleach and chlorine granules since opening 3 weeks ago. Shortly after opening with just the above and a clear pool, I started seeing the brown stains, picture enclosed.

I noticed pH was way low and TA was 50 and added two boxes of Borax and pH didn't budge.At that time I took a sample to Leslie's and bought their TA up stuff. Added 10 lbs of that and nothing changed.

I then posted here and the rest is on here. I will keep filtering and leave the borax.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-474inMXBXzw/T1LkCIngkfI/AAAAAAAABf4/_wCexekplEU/s640/IMG00353-20100609-0732.jpg

These are the steps before agging the additional borax.

[drbob101]

The pool is clear after two filter breakdowns and washes.

ph is 8.4 and TA is 50 and the steps etc look like the pictures above.

Free chlorine is >.5ppm, cya is 25.

The liner looks fine also so the blue was most likely a precipiate as per Ben's guess #2, in my opinion. That precipitate that appeared as milky really gums up the filter for future reference.

Please advise what are best steps now to get ph and TA in line and then address the brown stains.

I see Ben advises adding acid now. How much and what kind?

Thank you all for the help
Bob

[Watermom]

In a 20,000 gallon pool, it will take approximately 16 oz. ( a pint) of muriatic acid to drop the pH by 0.2. But, we have learned not to try to adjust something all in one dose, right?;);) So, we want to do this gradually. I think I would add 2 pints. That should take you down to 7.8 but lets see what it does.

Muriatic acid is nasty stuff and you need to be careful with it. Pour it slowly and carefully in front of a return jet. Be careful not to splash it on yourself or on the liner. Try to stay upwind of the fumes and it is best to wear gloves and eye protection. Keep the pump running to let it circulate.

This is also going to drop your alk. So, you're going to need to add some baking soda to raise it. A good range for alk is 80-120.

You also need to add some bleach. With a cya of 25, you want to keep the cl between 2-5 all the time.

What order to do these things? I would add some bleach first. Actually it would be ok to add a couple of lbs. of baking soda at the same time as the bleach. After circulating for a few hours, then add the acid. Then, wait 3 or 4 hours and retest and then go from there.

EDIT -- Just reread your post. Did you mean that your chlorine was >5ppm instead of >.5ppm by any chance? If that is the case, you don't need to add any bleach right now.

[drbob101]

yes...chlorine is >5ppm so no chlorine needed at this time. I will get some baking soda and acid in the morning and proceed slowly with it.

Thank you

[Watermom]

Sounds like a plan. Let us know how it goes and what your numbers are after the additions.