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  1. #1
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    Default How much baking soda?

    If the pool store tells me to add 20 pounds of Alk Up, how much Baking soda do I add?

  2. #2
    CarlD's Avatar
    CarlD is offline SuperMod Emeritus Vortex Adjuster CarlD 4 stars CarlD 4 stars CarlD 4 stars CarlD 4 stars CarlD 4 stars CarlD 4 stars
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    Default Re: How much baking soda?

    20 pounds?????What, do you have a 100,000 gallon pool????

    Jeez, those guys! The difference between 1 lb of pool store alkalinity raiser and 1 lb of baking soda is several dollars. That's IT. Both are sodium bicarbonate--the same stuff, only it's catastrophically more expensive at the pool store.

    Normally, start with 1 pound--not 20! Add it to the skimmer while it's running and wait a day, then test your Total Alkalinity. You are aiming for 80-125ppm of Tot Alk. Just add 1 pound of baking soda a day until you reach your target.

    That's all you gotta do.
    Carl

  3. #3
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    Default Re: How much baking soda?

    I guess it depends on what your alkalinity reads currently. If I do the math right, 20 pounds would get me a 50 ppm increase. I'm not sure how much you can put in at a time if that is really how far you have to go.
    IG 30,000 gal vinyl

  4. #4
    duraleigh Guest

    Default Re: How much baking soda?

    If the pool store tells me to add 20 pounds of Alk Up, how much Baking soda do I add?
    Answer....Zero

    Before I did what the pool store said, I would confirm where my alkalinity is and where I want it to go.

    Figure the gallons in the pool, Test for alkalinity, and then add enough to get you to 100. If you've already done that and the pool store is correct, the answer is 20.

    I would base my dose on how much I'm trying to change it. A 40 point increase in a 24k pool is 13.5 lbs. At one pound per day, you would take two weeks (and 14 applications) to get there.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: How much baking soda?

    My pool is a 20,000 gal AG vinyl liner.

    last night I tested with my HTH 6 way and got these numbers.

    TC 0.5
    Ph 7.2
    TA 120
    TH 500
    CYA >100

    I took some water in to the pool store for testing today and they got the following numbers.

    CYA 100
    TC 1.5
    FC 0.4
    Ph 7.1
    TA 86
    Adj TA 56
    TH 220

  6. #6
    waterbear's Avatar
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    Default Re: How much baking soda?

    Wtih your stabilizer that high the adjusted TA might be a more valid reading. CYA will test as part of the TA. When the CYA is in normal ranges it can pretty much be ignored but when it is as high as yours it shows as a large chunk of your TA. My advice would be to do a partial drain and refill and get your CYA down to about 30-50 ppm and then rebalance the water.
    Retired pool store and commercial pool maintenance guy.

  7. #7
    duraleigh Guest

    Default Re: How much baking soda?

    Off the subject, but, regardless of who's numbers you trust, chlorine should be your priority right now...not Alk.

    If the pool store tested correctly, you need to shock your pool. I would move Cl up to 25-28ppm in a vinyl pool and 30+ if it's concrete.

    Then let it drift down into the 5-10ppm range and keep it there until you decide what to do about the high CYA.

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