Muriatic Acid effects on TA

[CarlD]

Yes. Add baking soda to compensate and re-raise T/A.

[waterbear]

Acid lowers TA no matter how it is added to the pool. Period. There are some 'old wives tales' entrenched in the pool industry that refuse to die in the light of science that has completely debunked them.
As a side note. If you have to add acid all the time to maintain your pH then your TA is too high. One of the main causes of acid demand is too high a TA.
If you are using a stabilized chlorine like trichlor or dichlor (or bromine or chlorine gas or MPS) which are acidic you want your TA on the high side (100-150) to minimized the effects of the constant additions of these acidic froms of chlorine and other acidic pool chemicals.
If you are using an unstabilized chlorine (sodium hypochlorite--liquid chlorine and bleach, calcium hypochlorite, and lithium hypochlorite then you want yout TA down to around 70-90 ppm to minimize the outgassing of CO2 which will increase your pH stability and decrease your acid demand.
It gets quite complex if you want to undersand the chemitry but if you are intersted I can post some links that explain it all!

With a SWG the most important things you can do to minimize your acid demand are to maize sure your CYA is at 80 ppm AND to lower your TA to about 70 ppm!

Once again if you want the explanation why PM me.

And to answer your question, yes it is possible to keep a perfect pool if you understand the chemistry that is going on!

[CarlD]

Evan is 100% correct, which is no surprise.

But my short answer is also correct: Adding acid lowers T/A and you can add baking soda to compensate, if you want/need to.

[waterbear]

LOL! Carl, I never said it wasn't! I was just expounding on it! You are also 100% correct!
Between us we covered the long and the short of it!

[CarlD]

Sorry if it came out that way, but no criticism was intended, simply multiple ways of viewing it.