Incredibly High TA

[tvaislrsrt]

My spa's TA is off the charts high... I can't even get a reading for it (my solution becomes supersaturated long before the test turns color). But I know it is high. My Calcium Hardness is 340 and my Chlorine and PH are normal. The water looks clear (unless the spa gets a lot of use and then it will cloud up and the ph is low at which time we add soda ash).

So my TA is really high. That is the only factor that is off. I understand that in order to reduce the TA, I need to add Hydrocloric Acid in large qauntities (over a period of time of course). I'm a little reluctant to do this. I recently had a very expensive heat exchanger that was eaten thru (I'm assuming because the people taking care of the pool were adding too much acid). It was only six months old!

If the acid is what caused the damaged to my heat pump, i am having a hard time with adding large amounts of acid in order to fix my total alkalinity. The difference may be, the acid that damaged my heat pump was being added to reduce ph on a daily basis... this would have been a result of high TA showing the need for Acid daily... if I shock it with Acid in order to reduce the TA, I won't need to add acid on a daily basis which might increase the life of my heat exchanger... does all of this sound logical?

Any advise would be much appreciated.