Ascorbic acid, chlorine and TA (long)

[mbar]

I can answer the chlorine question - chlorine is used up getting rid of the ascorbic acid. When I was first using the ascorbic acid I asked a guy from the chemistry strore what would happen if I still have chlorine in the pool and add the ascorbic acid - he said nothing - it would just waste some of the ascobic acid, because the chlorine will eat it up, that is why you should have your chlorine at 0 to start. I never had the alkalinity rise when I was doing the stain treatment - The ph goes way down, and is hard to raise after the treatment. I don't know what would have raised the alkalinity, what is your ph? Did you add any baking soda to raise your ph? I am not at all a chemist, but to lower your alkalinity your want to gas off the carbonates. The only thing I can think of is if you added baking soda to raise your ph, you would have also raised your alkalinity - you can use borax to raise the ph, it won't raise your alkalinity.

[EricF]

Thanks for the reply.

No bicarbonate...my alkalinity is naturally high and that is one additive I don't even have around.

No matter the cause, it looks like I am doing the "Lower the Alkalinity Dance" once again. Good thing I have a lot of muriatic acid. My fill water in eastern NC has an alkalinity of about 210.

Hopefully the stains won't come back!

Eric F

[EricF]

Oh, and my chlorine was 0 to start. I just was not expecting the chlorine demand after treatment, or the increase in alkalinity.

Thanks,
Eric F

[mbar]

You can see the best way to lower your alkalinity in this thread:

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=191

You will start to hold chlorine when all the ascorbic acid is out of the water, it is always good to put in maintanence doses of metal free each month too.