Low PH

[Jeton]

The OTO yellow drops and the phenol red drops that we are using are HTH and purchased within the past two weeks at Walmart. We have city water. We are purchasing the HTH 6-way today and ordering the K-2006. My husband is asking about the hand-held digital test kits? Are you familiar?

[waterbear]

Don't waste your money on a digital tester. Get K-2006. The strip readers are only as good as the strips (which means not good at all). LaMotte does make the ColorQ. It is ok but has limitations (since all the tests are colormetric and not titrations) and is not any more precise or accurate than a K-2006 and often is less. I have used digital testers when I worked in a retail store and our LaMotte colorimeter cost over $1000 and I still used K-2006 for backup when the limited range of the digital tester was exceeded! Also, when LaMotte came out with the ColorQ I asked their tech support if it was any good. He said, It's a $100 meter. It's good for what it is.
The handheld pH and ORP testers are not worth using either, They require a lot of care and maintenance, must be calibrated with standard solutions, and the electrodes have to be replaced regularly.
The only digital tester that might be useful is a salt meter. (It still needs care and calibration with a standard solution) IF you have a salt pool. However, this is one test that strips do a decent job.

[Jeton]

As per your request I just tested the swimming pool and our city water using the new HTH 6-Way: Swimming Pool: Alkalinity 60, Hardness 0 (the drops did not turn the water red at all), CA 70, PH 6.8 and Chlorine dark orange. We didn't get the distilled water so we couldn't test the PH using it. City water results: Alkalinity 100, Hardness 170, CA 0, PH 7.2 and Chlorine .5 or less. There have been no chlorine tablets in the skimmer for about 36 hours and the test results are the same!

[PoolDoc]

I'm inclined to think your pH is low -- so go back to Walmart and get about 10 boxes of 20 Mule Team Borax + some distilled water. Go ahead and start adding borax, 1 box at a time, added slowly to the skimmer. BUT also use the distilled water to test your pH level.

And, check your pH test by adding a few grains of borax to the pH sample AFTER you've added the phenol red and taken a reading. The color should change to near purple.

Low pH is NOT good for vinyl liners, or for pool heaters, so get right on this.

I'm puzzled by the readings -- you've been using trichlor tabs all summer? And, you haven't had any algae or slime? In that case, I understand how your pH could be low, but I don't understand how you could have 0.0 cyanuric acid (CYA).

[Jeton]

The cyanuric acid in the pool is 70. It's 0 in the city water. We've used the trichlor tabs all summer. Water has been and still is crystal clear. I'll add the Borax tomorrow. I added a box last week with no change in results. Should I check the PH after adding each box? Thanks.

[PoolDoc]

Yes, you should test pH after an hour or so.

It's important to understand that, with most color based pH tests including phenol red, the low end and high end of the test do NOT mean that the pH is at that level. Instead, it means the pH is at that level OR beyond. A pH reading of 6.8 means "6.8 or lower" and NOT "6.8 exactly".

So . . . your previous box of borax DID do something: it told you that your pH was NOT equal to 6.8, but that it was somewhere below that, possibly MUCH below. If it had been 6.8 exactly, you would have seen an increase.

[Jeton]

I put the 3rd box of borax in 4 hours ago. The PH is now between 7.6 and 7.8. The chlorine seems a little lighter but is still bright orange. When I start to add chlorine after it's in the correct range, should I use bleach instead of the skimmer tabs? and can you tell me how much? I'm going to peruse your site now to see how to use the 3 B's. Continual thanks!!