Just painted my old 45 year old fiberglass pool and refilled with well water.

[aylad]

If you want to continue to lower the TA, you'll need to use the acid to drop the pH to the 7.0 range and then aerate to raise the pH back up, like you've been doing. If you are at a point with the TA where you want to stop, then I would add enough acid to get the pH back to the 7.2-7.8 range.

Janet

[gwingard]

When my pool has found its balanced range I find that my pH normally falls consistantly as a result of being constantly fed with tri-chlor tablets. Unfortunately simple aeration isn't usually enough to maintain my proper pH level so I use borax to bring it back up. I do have to top of the pool from time to time but since I'm normally aerating TA isn't usually a huge problem after refilling. I will continue as you suggest lowering the TA with muriatic acid to get it back into its normal range. I certainly appreciate your positive reinforcement on all of this. I have been wondering if there is a source out there to buy borax in bulk. Any suggestions?

Thanks again,

Geoffrey

[BigDave]

I don't know about bulk Borax but remember that trichlor is self limiting and that as your CYA goes up so does your FC requirement - refer to Ben's Best Guess chart.

How are you aerating? If you could make the splashing more energetic, it could lower you Borax requirement since you TA is already so high.

[gwingard]

To splash my pool I simply have a length of flexible pipe screwed into the poolside water inlet that's aimed above the water surface. It's not exactly pretty but is reasonably energetic. It had been 8 years since I last fully drained the pool for painting and I'm sure that in that time a lot of CYA had accumulated in the water. As of yesterday I had manged to get the TA down to 230 but obviously I've still got a ways to go. I am going to more closely watch my CYA in the future and hopefully reduce my trichlor input which should also reduce my borax requirements. I've been a follower of Ben's for years and have always had good results. At this moment, despite the high TA, the water in the pool is the clearest I've ever seen. It's simply stunning. I guess it was due for a change!

Thanks,

Geoffrey