Pool Chemicals Low Alkalinity

pool chemicals low alkalinity
Pool chemical testing?

I tested my pool water and here’s my results:

Total hardness-200
Free chlorine-3
pH-7.2
Total alkalinity-240
Cyanuric acid-30-50

The total alkalinity is high. The HTH website told me to add pH minus to the pool but if I do that it’ll drop my pH too low.

What to do?

This is a 5,455 gallon easy set pool.

Your total alkalinity is quite high and you will need to get it down. The only way to do this properly is to do dilution drains on the pool. Drain off a couple inches of water, refill it, and do this process 7 times total. This will reduce your alkalinity as well as the cyanuric acid (which you want to maintain below 60ppm at all times anyway) and will also reduce the hardness and chlorine of the pool so you will have to rechlorinate.

If your alkalinity is high like this you will experience cloudy water or scaling at the water line, especially with a hardness level that you have. If your water is naturally alkaline like this then adding acid will reduce the alkalinity but will also drop the pH of the pool. You can raise the pH independently with 20 Mule Team Borax.

I’m sorry I didn’t touch on this stuff in the email exchange, but I thought you were just asking about what the alkalinity does and why they told you to add in 64lbs of acid (ph Minus is sodium bisulfate which is granulated/powder acid) to the pool (which is still EXTREMELY high amount to think about dumping in the water!!!).

Removing Algae From a Swimming Pool : Balancing Alkalinity in Swimming Pool