Sudden cloudiness

[Barry J]

49% Calcium Hypochlorite
My ph was 7.0

[waterbear]

if cal hypo and sodium hypochlorite are your main forms of chlorine than an ALK of 80 is perfect once you get the pH up with borax. It will minimize pH rise from outgassing of CO2 which will be the main cause of pH instability in your pool.

[Watermom]

You've got to get that pH up before you leave town. Get it to 7.6 or so. Add borax, wait 2 hours, retest, redose until you get it there. 7.0 is too low. If it drops any lower, the water will become acidic and can damage your pool. Take it up to around 7.6. No higher than 7.8.

[SalemCastles]

Since you haven't been measuring . . . .

================================================

In this post, DurhamHouses took some positions contrary to the 'standard' advice we give here. He might be right . . . but our policy has long been that if you want to contradict our standard advice, you may do so in the China Shop. There, you can argue it out to your heart's content.

And . . . if you prove your point, we'll change.

But, we do not do those debates in the middle of threads, where we're trying to help someone.

So . . . his thread, and subsequent replies have all been moved to this thread:
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?13588
in the China Shop.

Sincerely,

Ben Powell

[Watermom]

I respectfully disagree. Raise it before you leave town or else have your dad do it.

[aylad]

I agree with Watermom. You risk doing damage to your pool if your pH get below 7.0. It won't take long, or much effort, to raise it.

Janet

[waterbear]

Since you have a vinyl pool Aylad and Watermom are right on the money...get the pH up now.
pH below 7.0 can and will damage vinyl liners.

I think a more important question is how did your pH and TA get as low as it did? Normally that is seen with the use of Trichlor, Dihlor, and or MPS (non chlorine shock) AND not monitoring TA and pH since these acidic chemicals deplete both but since you have no CYA in your water that indicates that you have not used either trichlor or dichlor since they both add CYA to the water and you indicated you shock with sodium hypochlrite (bleach). Do you add acid to your pool and if so do you do it without testing pH?