Alkalinity and PH issues

[Krizoid]

Thanks for the replies, I was beginning to wonder if I had posed an unanswerable question. I have been doing the alkalinity reduction method in your link for a week now and my alkalinity is down to 130. I plan to continue until I am in the 80-100 range.

This seems to be a related question in my mind. Will my PH stop drifting up to 8+ when the alkalinity is lower? or will it drift more slowly? or will it just take less acid to bring it back down? Obviously I've been keeping PH low to reduce alkalinity so I am wondering what to expect when am done.

Lastly I have had a tough time getting a good answer on why I need to maintain a pool at PH <7.8. Do you know of a link or paper that explains why a high PH is a problem. I'm interested in a technical explanation and not afraid of chemical equations.

At this point my questions are more for my own understanding. I just want to know why I am doing things to the pool not just what to do.

Thanks,

[PoolDoc]

Will my PH stop drifting up to 8+ when the alkalinity is lower?

Yes.

Lastly I have had a tough time getting a good answer on why I need to maintain a pool at PH <7.8.

Chlorine becomes less active as the pH goes up; water balance (pH + calcium hardness + alkalinity) becomes harder to manage; you'll have to buy a pH meter to manage things.

That's a very, very brief explanation that over-simplifies things, but is correct practically speaking.

If you want more, I'll put you in touch with all the work Chem_Geek has done -- but understand you don't need to know, to do your pool well.