Cannot Raise Ph

[TISMAN]

Despite adding over 14kg of ph up i cannot raise my ph - my test kit just measures ph and chlorine - but i found an old kit that measures ta and it did not seem to register any ta at all.
When we first had the pool installed we were told(wrongly i now know) that to increase your ph add acid - so obviously for a while we were making a bad situation worse,

can anyone give me any advice please - i am adding ph up every day - and my ph is still not moving.

The water is crystal clear and has a nice healthy bloom, but i would really love to get to the bottom of this ph problem.

[chem geek]

If a drop-based Total Alkalinity (TA) test turns red immediately, then that means the pH is 4.5 or below. If that is the case, add pH Up (soda ash / washing soda). If you start measuring high TA, then just aerate to get the pH up further, but it sounds like you aren't there yet.

If you had a Taylor K-2006 (or even K-2005) test kit, then you could use it's "base demand" test to determine how much base is needed, though you'd add about half that amount and see where things stand.

[Guest]

Thank you for your reply you seem to know an awful lot about pools!! Do you know if the kits you mention can be bought in France, the ones on sale in our supermarket are either dip sticks, tablets or drops, and only the dip stick ones measure alkalinty.

Thank you again

[chem geek]

Unfortunately I am not familiar with which test kits you can get in France. If you have a choice, use the ones that are drop-based though tablets are OK. The dip sticks (test strips) are not always reliable (depending on the test -- they can't test Calcium Hardness and their CYA test isn't very good and the TA ranges are too broad).

[Guest]

Thank you again. Could I ask just one more thing, to try and get my ph right, I have not been putting chlorine in my pool, because every time I add the ph plus it seems to wipe out the chlorine. I probably sound like a complete idiot, but my husband used to maintain the pool, and sometimes the more I read the more confused I become!

[chem geek]

pH Up does not wipe out chlorine. It must be a coincidence or the higher pH had the chlorine get consumed faster, perhaps by an impending algae bloom. To learn more about maintaining your pool, I suggest you read the Pool School.