Quote Originally Posted by JohnT View Post
You have a problem and it needs to be fixed quickly. Your pH was at 6.8 and you added acid. That means that it is now well below 6.8 because that's as low as your test kit can measure. It may have been below 6.8 before. You should start aerating your pool by whatever means you can, even if you can only point the eyeballs toward the surface. Get some borax in the water as soon as you can. You're probably going to run the store out. My ~20,000 gallon pool takes about a box of borax to move the pH up 0.1.

Acid does not lower alkalinity.
Acid doesn't lower alkalinity? I thought that's what everyone says to use to lower the alkalinity and then aerate to raise the PH??? Holy smokes am I confused now for sure. Anyway, I realize it's possible for the PH to drop below the 6.8 and I wouldn't know it since that's the lowest my test goes, but it is the same color as the 6.8 and it matches exactly, that's why I thought it was 6.8. If it was lighter than the 6.8, then I'd worry it was lower. But I will put Borax in as soon as I get home from work tonight to hopefully quickly raise the PH. I still don't know how much to add though. I guess I'll start with one box, but how long do I wait before I test to see how much it raised it? Does it take 1 hour or 8 hours? Does anyone know? I'm trying to figure out how much to add in what intervals. Thanks much!