Cloudy water after adding PH increaser...

[lisa412]

Hi,
My local pool place tested my water and said the PH was still too low and told me to add 4 lbs. of Bioguard balance pak 200 (ph increaser). She said it could make the water a little cloudy. I added slightly less than they recommended and now I can't see the bottom of the pool at all. I called the pool store and they told me it should burn off and clear up in a few hours but I'm concerned. Is this common?
Help!
Thanks!!!

[chem geek]

It is common if your water is already near saturation with calcium carbonate in which case you probably shouldn't be adding pH Increaser (pH Up) in the first place. This product is sodium carbonate and increases not only pH, but also Total Alkalinity (TA) by quite a bit as well.

It may clear up if the cloudiness is just due to it not thoroughly mixing with all of the pool water, but it sounds like you've now over-saturated your water. You should get yourself your own good test kit, either the Taylor K-2006 you can get at a good online price here or the TF100 from tftestkits.net here with the latter kit having 36% more volume of reagents so is less expensive per test.

You can then use The Pool Calculator to calculate the saturation index which in your pool I suspect is too high which would result in more persistent cloudiness and even scaling.

In the future, if you need to raise the pH while raising the TA only half as much, you can use 20 Mule Team Borax. If you want to raise the pH with no change in TA, you can aerate the water.

[Guest]

Please can anyone help me. I have just taken over the maintenance of the pool, and try as I might I cannot get my ph beyond 6.8. I have so far added `12kg if oh plus all to no avail - when I use the testing sticks it is not showing any ta at all. I have tried arieating the water, which looks absolutely lovely, but nothing seems sto make any difference. Also every time I add ph plus it seems to destroy my cholrine balance - I have looked at so many web sites, I am getting completely baffled - can anyone out there help me.

[chem geek]

Get yourself a good test kit, either the Taylor K-2006 you can get at a good onine price here or the TF100 kit from tftestkits.net here with the latter kit having 36% more volume of reagents so is less expensive per test. Without a proper test kit you really have no idea what is going on. The pH may be far lower than 6.8. You say the CYA is zero, but then there should be no chlorine measurement and you are only reporting Total Chlorine (TC) perhaps from an OTO (shades of yellow) chlorine test yet it is Free Chlorine (FC) that is relevant. The pH Up isn't destroying your chlorine -- it's sunlight (if your CYA is truly 0) or perhaps you've got ammonia in the pool (from bacteria converting CYA into ammonia if you let the pool go to zero chlorine, say over the winter).

If you had one of the aforementioned test kits, then you could do the Total Alkalinity (TA) test which if it turns red immediately not only means the TA is 0 but that the pH is below 4.5. If you get the Taylor K-2006, it has acid/base demand tests so you can estimate how much base it will take to raise the pH.

How did the pH get so low? Was this from continued use of Trichlor pucks/tabs without checking the pH and raising it with pH Up over time?