mariner09,

Yes, you can keep your pH at 7.8. The only downsides are a slight possibility of being more drying or stinging on the eyes since it's further away from the 7.5 that is around the pH of tears, but even that pH varies by person so I think you'll be fine. The other thing is that chlorine is a little less effective at that pH, but not by as much as the "traditional" industry graphs say because CYA helps to buffer disinfecting chlorine concentration. It's only around 10% less effective, so just bump your FC target up a bit to compensate.

You can lower your TA to around 80 to see if that helps. Then use 7.7 or so as your pH target after you've lowered your TA and I think you'll find a huge drop in the amount of acid you need and some drop in the rate of pH rise.

Amir,

No, I didn't move any of the charts and the link works for me right now and I don't have it protected in any way (i.e. it's visible throughout the world). Do you get an error message like it's a broken link? Does anyone else see that problem? Here are some links to various charts and graphs:

Free Chlorine Chart
Disinfecting Chlorine Chart
Outgassing CO2 Chart
Rate of pH Rise Chart
Chlorine Half-Life Graph (will be changed in future)
Disinfecting Chlorine Graph

Richard