made this post 5/10/07:
Ahhh, the mellow, friendly vibe of the PoolForum. So nice to be back. Course, I wouldn't be here reading if there wasn't just the teensiest little problem of my own. Hmmmm.... Vitamin C tablets, eh? Wouldn't hurt to have a little stash of those around the house anyway, and they're certainly not very expensive.
So. My pool man (me) did the ascsorbic acid treatment on 5/12/07. The stain did LITERALLY vanish before my eyes. Freakish, bizarre. I was slowly working around the pool edge dropping the powder in and I happened to look up before I was even finished going around and a large area opposite was already clear! So.
But today I wanted to say this: yesterday, May 24, was the first day I did not have to dump in chlorine (bleach), ie, did not have a zero reading. (I did follow instructions and put in the amount I believed correct according to the "best guess" chart - in my case about 8 ppm.) that means it took 13 days for the pool to stabilize with respect to chlorine. Does that sound right? Everything appears to be just as happy as a clam now. All the other values are fine. I should mention that my Ph behaved perversely according to what I read here - it never went down. I do not have a good tester, but the color on a test strip indicates a strong Ph, around 7.6 or higher. Now that the chlorine has settled down I plan to go to the pool store and have a test done. I'd appreciate any comments....
I still can't believe the way that stain disappeared
PS how do I lower Ph without lowering total alkalinity? would appreciate a helpful nudge from anyone on this question...


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I had a very hard time balancing my water the first time I did the stain treatment - but I had the whole pool stained yellow, plus some really big stains on top of that. My ph was something that I had a really hard time keeping up too. As for how to lower ph without lowering the alkalinity - use muriatic acid, or ph down. THis may lower the alk slightly - but very slightly, because the only way to get rid of alkalinity is to gas it off by aerating the water, which will then raise your ph
It is a really good plan if you have high alk with low ph
Just use some muriatic acid (be careful with it) You can go to the bleach calc and do more calcs, and it will help you with lowering the ph. I suggest you invest in a good test kit - it will save you tons of money in the long run, and lots of trips to the pool store
Feel free to ask any other questions you may have.
