I am wondering if I should be concerned with bacteria growth while I am treating my pool w/ Muriatic Acid?
My small 1700+ gal. pool was filled using our well. Because our well has very high iron, my pool's Alkalinity is very high.
This is a newly set up pool (less than 1 wk set up). And I have no clorine in it (has not been shocked / treated with Clorine at all- I'm waiting until the Alkalinity is much lower).
My goal is to get down to 100ppm Alkalinity.
So far my progress has been:
After my initial dose of 16oz. of Muriatic Acid (24hrs later) my PH was 7.8 (down from 8.0), and Alkalinity was 358ppm.
After another 24 hours, my results (after a 2nd dose of 16oz. MA) are: PH 7.6 and Alkalinity at 286.40
I feel good about continuing on this path (unless someone tells me differently!) The PH is slowly decreasing, along with my Alkalinity. If all goes well, I should be at my target goal in approx. 4 more days.
My concern is, since I do not have any other chemicals in the pool- and it is being used (after 12 hours of dosing, and 6 hours of pump running) I'm worried about bacteria growth developing. Should I be concerned? Should I just let it ride for a few more days until I can start adding the Chlorine? Is there anything I should be using along w/ the Muriatic Acid (besides an Algaecide- Haven't used one yet, need to find one without copper!) to control bacteria?
The water is only a tinge cloudy. That just happened in the last day or so. And the water still has a faint Iron color to it. When the cloudy started, that's what made me wonder about bacteria. Having nothing in the pool kind of creeps me out- Reminds me of a community bath tub! (gross!) Not a swimming pool.
Thank you for your time!
