Risks with high alkalinity?

[chem geek]

I thought waterbear = Evan?

Yes, waterbear is Evan's login name. [EDIT] I don't know why I mixed up the name with Tom -- my brain fart. [END-EDIT]

I wouldn't get discouraged with your situation. What I'm trying to work through, along with Evan, is the possibility that you can operate at a higher pH and not worry about your high alkalinity as much. If you try to go to a pH much lower than 7.8, then you will be "fighting" the pH rise due to the outgassing of carbon dioxide and you will be using lots of acid. If instead you let yourself operate in the range of 7.8 to 8.0, then you can still be safe by keeping your chlorine levels about 15% higher than Ben's chart.

Since you are not seeing scaling nor cloudiness, there should be no problem with your running with the high alkalinity. The ideal situation would be for you to outgas CO2 to lose alkalinity at about the same rate as your fill water adds it to fill up after evaporation. You can just monitor your alkalinity over an extended period of time since it should move quite slowly (assuming you start with a pool alkalinity the same as your tap water).

So, bottom line, don't try to fight the situation you've got (high alkalinity) and instead accommodate it via a higher pH operating level.

Richard

[Rangeball]

Richard, thanks.

Initially I'd read Ben's "operate at high ph" article, and planned to do so. However since my OTO kit only reads up to 8.2, I decided not to until I had a proper test kit. I assumed once I got my alk down, PH would be fairly stable, and I'd only have to adjust when I added fill like you said, which is where I am now.

I'll try to get current readings for CL, PH and Alk tonight and add them here tomorrow. I need to get another gallon of acid I'm sure.

Just got a call back from the water plant. They had looked in their records and found an entry from 1975 when the city put 3 new wells in (we're still using them) and the CA reading was 62ppm. Our town sits on top of a huge aquifer, and I don't see much evidence looking around that calcium scaling is a big problem (lot's of ag fields using irrigation rigs, etc.).

I'll look at walmart and pick up their OTO kit if it tests CH.

[waterbear]

I'll look at walmart and pick up their OTO kit if it tests CH.

It does but it has some issues....many people, including myself have found that it doesn't always work correctly...a workaround that I have found is to keep adding drops of the first reagent until you get the pink-violet color instead of a yellowish color. I have done this and cross checked with both Ben's kit and Taylor's and it is in the ballpark.