Raising TA while maintaining salinity

[waterbear]

I agree, drop the TA to around 70 or even 60 ppm, maintain the pH between 7.6 to 7.8 and consider adding borax or boric acid to maintain a borate level of 50 ppm (which will introduce a secondary pH buffer to maintain the pH at around 7.7 for an extended period compared to without the borate and also has algaestatic properties and some other desirable effects on the water). You might also want to bump up the CYA to 80 ppm. This might allow you to lower the cell output or pump run time a bit which would create less CO2 outgassing (and therefore slower pH rise and less acid demand) from the hydrogen production in the cell (which produces tiny bubbles that aerate the water).
Also, by raising your pH setpoint while dropping the TA and adding the borate you will maintain almost exactly the same calcium saturation index that your currently have (very slightly negative, which is ideal for a salt pool since it helps limit scale production in the cell while still not being aggressive to the plaster surface. By my calculations the CSI is right around -.15 at your current levels and stays right there if you make the adjustments suggested (you didn't state the make of your SWCG or the salt level so I assume that high salt means aroud 3400-3500 ppm--even if it is as high as 5000 ppm your CSI is still well within acceptable range on the negative side and if you don't add any borate it moves closer to 0--however, the borate IS a worthwhile addition to a salt pool!)

[carp6318]

Thanks for the replies. My acid injector is the intelliph and I set how much acid it is to inject every 60 minutes. It, as well as the SWCG, is on a timer that runs 12 hours per day in conjunction with the pool pump and it currently injects 1.5 oz every 60 minutes. My SWCG is a Pentair IC40 and it is set at 5% on the intelliph control panel. My pool has never really demanded a lot of chlorine. As for my current salt levels, they have progressed up from 3500ppm in early 2012 to 4400ppm today. I have added zero salt since the pool was filled and the builder put the salt in (30 days after filling). That is what has me searching right now is how can my salt level be climbing without adding salt - my guess was sodium bicarbonate but I dont know. Thanks for the suggestion of the boric acid.

[chem geek]

Your salt level is increasing because you are adding hydrochloric acid (HCl) to control the pH so that is where the chloride is coming from. The acid lowers both pH and TA so when you add sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) to increase the TA, you are adding sodium. So between the acid and the baking soda, you are increasing sodium chloride -- salt. The following table shows you what is happening:

......................................... pH ...... TA ....... Na+ .... Cl-
Carbon Dioxide Outgassing ..... + ......... 0 ......... 0 ........ 0
Adding Acid ......................... - .......... - ......... 0 ........ +
Adding Baking Soda .............. 0 ......... + ......... + ....... 0
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Net Result ........................... 0 ......... 0 ......... + ....... +

Na+ is sodium, Cl- is chloride, and sodium chloride is ordinary table salt and is what is used in the pool at an elevated level for the SWCG.