Time to replace sand?

[aylad]

[*]Should I continue with the acid to keep it to 7.0 even if it means adding muriatic acid every day or two? [*]Is there any risk of the pH or TA test colors being off because of the high FC?

The pH may register falsesly high when your chlorine is above 10 ppm. The higher chlorine should not affect the TA test colors. The ratcheting down of TA can be a very lengthy process, and it is slower in your pool because your pH is staying low before each acid addition, so you're not able to drop the alk very much with each addition. If you had some form of aeration in the pool (fountain, etc), the pH might rise a little higher each time, allowing you to make more progress with each acid addition.. I would continue to work on it, using the method that you're using, until you at least get it down to the 140 range.

My pool is maintained with 80-90 ppm of CYA, and I use approximately 4-5 of the large jugs of WalMart bleach weekly to maintain 8 ppm in my (roughly 29K gallon) pool, to answer one of your earlier questions. (I've been working nights this week and somehow missed a whole page of your thread..sorry!)

Glad to see you're seeing progress on your pool. Hang in there--it will all be worthwhile in the end!!


Janet