Help! Used Muratic acid instead of bleach!

[rastoma]

yeah, you're right. I don't know what I had my bleachcalc set to but the time I ran it it showed 24ppm LOL sorry.

[waterbear]

And generally add half the recommended amounts and see where you are at, even if the recommendation is from me.

I'm not sure why you swung so high in pH. Maybe your son didn't actually put in as much as he said or my calculations could be wrong (in which case, I'd like to find out and fix it). It's been right with others using Borax so I'm not sure what happened and I'm really sorry for any trouble this caused.

Richard

A full box of borax is 4 lbs 12 oz.....almost 5 lbs. That could explain the pH rise. 3/4 to 1 cup of acid should get you back into the ballpark by my calculations.

[chem geek]

A full box of borax is 4 lbs 12 oz.....almost 5 lbs. That could explain the pH rise. 3/4 to 1 cup of acid should get you back into the ballpark by my calculations.

Evan,

From our previous discussions and your own experience, 1 box of Borax (4 pounds, 12 ounces) requires 4 cups, 7 ounces of Muriatic Acid to balance the pH. If his son did put in 4 cups of Muriatic Acid, then I would expect about 4 pounds of Borax would be required to neutralize it. About a pound of Borax is equivalent to a cup of Muriatic Acid.

Of course, he saw a much larger rise so something is amiss. Either his son did not in fact put in 4 full cups of acid, or more than 4 pounds of Borax was used, or our calculations our wrong.

Richard

[waterbear]

Richard, he said he dumped in one box....it only comes in one size....4 lbs 12 oz. so I stand by what I said in my prevoius post.

[chem geek]

Evan,

Whoops! I missed that part about dumping the whole box. If he dumped an entire box in, then the combination of 4 cups of acid and a box of Borax in a 2800 gallon pool (with 100 TA, 30 CYA) would have a net rise in pH from 7.5 to about 7.9 (close to his measured 8.0) and adding about 6 ounces of acid would bring this back down to 7.5 and 6 ounces is in the 3/4 to 1 cup range you suggested.

So I'm sorry I didn't read his post thoroughly and thank you for correcting me!

Richard

[SLR_65]

Hi Richard,

> And generally add half the recommended amounts
> and see where you are at, even if the recommendation is from me.

<grin> Noted!

> I'm not sure why you swung so high in pH.

It's still at the top end, I just tested it and I'm pretty good at testing . . . I'm a power plant boiler operator so I do water testing often.

No biggie though, I'll lower it -> in a more controlled manner!

> Maybe your son didn't actually put in as much as he said

I think he did, he said he put in two full measuring cups and it's a two cup measuring cup.

> or my calculations could be wrong (in which case,
> I'd like to find out and fix it).

Well, I kinda wonder about the actual volume of the thing - Intex says 2,800 but if you measure it and calculate it it should be more. However using the 2,800 figure in BleachCalc does usually result in the expected results so maybe it's right. Who knows, it's not worth fretting about now that the low PH has been resolved.

> It's been right with others using Borax so I'm not
> sure what happened and I'm really sorry for any
> trouble this caused.

Again, who knows. Every pool is different, every drop of water is different, errors happen in testing, etc. so there's bound to be the occasional fluke in there. Exactly why I always seem to end up with the flukes is beyond me though! <grin>

The overdose of Borax is no big deal - it's cheap and I can lower the PH easily, so it hasn't caused any trouble and I genuinely appreciate your help! THANK YOU Richard!

It's raining again today so I'll leave it alone for tonight and I'll start lower the Ph tomorrow - I'll post back how the recovery effort proceeds.

Thanks again, take care,

Steve

[SLR_65]

4 cups of 6% bleach in 2800 gallons of water should increase the chlorine by a little over 5 ppm.

Yep, and that's what it tends to do in practice also.

I don't normally shock the pool just to shock it. I put in 2 cups every evening and it seems to stay nice and clean. If the kids have a pool party or it rains I usually to put in 4 cups. I can't say I've ever had an issue after a pool party, but it does seem that the rain likes to bring on algae, but if I just double the bleach it stays fine and it had (has) been raining about every day here.

TTYL,

Steve

[SLR_65]

> <snip> it only comes in one size....4 lbs 12 oz <snip>

OOOOPS! I'm very sorry about giving bad information! I was sure I read 4lbs on the box, but I must've missed the 12 oz part!

Please excuse me, I was a bit rattled by all of this (I did find out that the color of adrenalin is brown though!)!

It's let up raining a bit so I think I'll hop out and put in 3/8 of a cup of acid and see what happens . . .

THANK YOU everyone for all the help!

TTYL,

Steve

[SLR_65]

It took just a tad over 1 cup to bring the Ph down to 7.4.

The pool is clear, the Ph is right, chlorine is at 6ppm with a CYA of 45, and it's quit raining and is supposed to be sunshiny and hot tomorrow! Whoo Hoo! Time to take a dip!

THANKS guys!

/Steve