I check weekly. I add United Chemical Easy acid if the PH and or Alkalinity is too way too high. If it's with 10% of the normal range I won't waste the money.

Swim University how can I keep my ph down on a salt water pool? Goes up very fast

Hellllp me please...please...ive had an algae bloom a month ago, i finally had to super shock it to get rid of it because the pool store was being too conservative i bought super shock triple shocked my terrible algae and got the water blue. My pH is 6.0 my alkalinity is 200. Im so upset.i added clarifyer and vacuumed it i clean my filter 3 times a day the water is milky ..im so frustrated..ive poured hundreds of dollars into this stupid above ground pool im almost about to just throw it in the trash. Ive got plants where my pool water will drain and ill end up killing my lawn but im so over it. Most of my stimulus check went to buying chlorine shock super shock pH up muriatic acid cyanuric acid a new clip for my vacuum that busted twice and new pool hoses..im so over it. Help. My water is blue but has a ton of particulates in it. Im so tired.

@@tamarakennedy4976 ... when I was a kid my family lived within walking distance of a swimming pool on a US Air Force Base. My father was a civilian employee at the Base which meant we could not use the pool intended for Airmen and their families. But guess what. We all had a better time running through lawn sprinklers and having fights with buckets of water. It was great and there was no danger of drowning. I suggest that you dismantle and sell your pool if that's possible and invite all the kids in the neighborhood over for dashes through sprinklers and water bucket fights. Ahhh yes ... the good old days. Algae? What's algae. Cloudy water? Where? PH? What the hell is PH? Is that an abbreviation for telephone? And what's a water pump? Our water came out of a hose automatically. My father must have been rich.

HELLLP MY PH IS 7.5 SIDE OF 7.6 NOT QUITE 7.4 AND LIGHTER THAN 7.6 BUT ALKALINITY TEST ON 5 WAY I HAD TO USE 19 DROPS OF #3 ACID DEMAND AND ALKALINITY DROPS TO NEUTRALIZE THE PURPLE WATER TEST ...HELLLP. WHAT DO I ADD?? I NEED JUST ALKALINITY TO LOWER...HELLLLP.HELLLP.

I read 30 mins but there could be hot spots expecially if you didn't turn on the pump to circulate. I personally would wait a day when you know the pool has completely circulated once.

4 hrs for muriatic acid

I have the same issue and i dont know how to balanace

Trust me a pool supply store is wayyy better than Walmart also the pool supply store was way cheaper and stronger chemicals that work and better cleaning equipment. Take it from me I learned the hard way I went to Walmart and never again. Also pool supply store has a water tester for free. Good luck

You may need to add slightly more sodium bicarbonate to the pool at once that what you're already doing. If you're adding 2 pounds, try 3. It could be changing too quick to hold its readings long enough with the amount being added. And if the green color you see is more on the yellow side you may have Mustard Algae. Pick up some Copper Algaecide and read the instructions carefully because adding too much could be hurtful to your pool or stain your plaster. If you use the Algaecide make sure to have the system running and brush the pool before adding, dont add any granulate chlorine (tabs are okay) this will stain the pool a grayish color.

10” high of water and 1” of muriatic acid total height of 11”

One theory for natural water balance is to use aeration! A fountain, spray feature or waterfall feature naturally aerate the water, supposedly, helping keep alkalinity levels in check. 👍

Brushing is always a good call ;-)

What if my PH is 7.2 but my alkaline is high (200ppm) should I add muriatic acid?

Renee Torres That sounds odd as they usually go hand and hand and are much closer. Are you sure the reagent/kit for ph is accurate? If the ph is low the alkalinity is usually low. I usually adjust the alkalinity first and the PH follows. With a PH of 7.2, I would not add muriatic acid as you want the PH to be about 7.4

@@cardo1111 I'm using the test kit that you put water in the Vile and add drops to it while shaking in between each one. I thought I was wierd to but iv done it everyday and the ph keeps coming in 7.2 and the alkaline says 200ppm ..iv tried test strips too and and I get the same result. I'm lost lol

@@reneetorres9845 You can aerate your water. This raises ph without upsetting alkalinity. A shop vac in reverse (blower instead of suction) for a few hours. Your neighbours will love it!

I think you need to drop pH to 7.0-7.2 then aerate to bring pH back up.

Yes this would be fine, the amount of acid to water you have isn't enough to hurt the vinyl. Have the system on when adding to ensure it mixes well.

pH will drop when adding chlorine. Make sure your alkalinity is in range. Shock is unstabilized and drop fast. Add more chlorine pucks to keep the chlorine up and more consistent.

Check your stabilizer level. If it is low, add cyanuric acid. Low cyanuric acid level is the number one thing in my 2 pool ownerships that caused the chlorine to dissipate too fast. Once it is in the 30 to 50 ppm level you will be good. Walmart sells Chlorox brand stabilizer cheap. Ingredient is 100% cyanuric acid. Also available on Amazon.

@@SwimUniversity check phosphates levels if high you probably are battling algae even if you can't see it eating up your chlorine. How is your CYA is high, it can over protect your chlorine refered to chlorine lock not remcommened over 50 ppm. But if you use the pucks, that is reached easily during the summer. I have experenced lower CYA as result of finding I had no chlorine, bacteria results and elimates CYA otherwise you have to drain or filter your pool water.

I would wait a few hours after running the filter and testing the water. You don't want to swim in water that just had an acid added to it.

In order to lower Alkalinty you have to use muriatic acid which also lowers PH. That's OK if you have high PH too, you just have to treat with acid (usually more than once since you shouldn't add more than 32 oz to a 10,000 gal pool at one time). What you have to watch for is that the PH doesn't get to low as in below 7.2 ppm as it takes more to bring alkalinty down than PH, in my experience anyway. You need to monitor the PH so that if it gets to 7.2 ppm you need to "aerate" the water to bring up the PH (does not raise the alkalinty) and once it's safe you can start to lower it again until you get the alkalinity usually below 90-100 ppm and aerate again to bring the PH up slightly to 7.4-7.6 range to balance both of them. If you use tablets vs liquid chlorine you will have different chemical balancing issues too.

It's possible there's a dilution issue.

That all depends on your pool’s ph and alkalinity levels.

You could try the pooling method but it’s supposedly a bit of a myth

Having the same issue. You ever get it figured out?

Ask your local pool expert about changing your pool water. This should be done in AZ every 3 to 5 years. The pool eventually cannot balance the chemicals and needs new water.

Clarifier or Flocculant

You are trying to match the ph in your pool to the ph in your eyes. Your eyes are between 7.0-7.3. Anything outside that range can be damaging to your eyes.

It depends on your pool. Concrete pools will require higher pH values because lower values will damage the concrete. However, you can go lower with your pH value in plastic pools. Regarding the effectiveness of chlorine, your information is about correct. Basically, free chlorine exists in two basic forms in your pool water: the hypochlorous acid (HClO), and the hypochlorite anion (ClO−). The hypochlorous acid is about 100 times more effective in disinfection than the hypochlorite anion. So what you want in your pool water is as much hypochlorous acid as reasonably possible. The ratio between both of these two forms of free chlorine is governed by the pH value. At pH 7.3, you have about 40% hypochlorous acid and 60% hypochlorite anion. If you want chlorine to become more effective, you will have to lower the pH value. Moreover, as your pH rises and more hypochlorite anions form, the more your pool water will become prone to forming unwanted chloramines from biological material collected from swimmers, such as sweat and urine, but also from decomposing insects in water, for example. Chloramines are also called "combined chlorine" (the one that stinks, burns in your eyes and nose, and does basically not disinfect your water), and this process can be partially reversed by lowering the water pH again. The rest of the chloramines will have to be destroyed by adding more free chlorine, though. Chloramine chemical bonds are very strong, so you will have to add as much as 10 times more free chlorine than you have measured combined chlorine to destroy chloramines.

Dry acid is more mild than liquid Muriatic. I use Magic Acid low fumes and it works but harder to find a seller or is not out of it. Muriactic acid works on both TA and PH much quicker with less product, but I have the safety equipment too. I'm still sturggline because you can only put so much of any acid in the pool at one time and then it takes awhile before it mixes to test, so it still takes time.

I'd also like to know this.

To lower PH add acid with pump on, to lower Alk add acid while water is still let it sit for about an hour before turning pump back on. To raise Alk add baking soda with pump on. This works for a salt system.

Do I see a new video coming out soon @Swim University? This seems to be the question that needs answered. I would certainly like to know...

What did you ever do about it?? My ph was good but I quit trying to figure out my alkalinity at 200

@@chief5981 Honestly, unless it gets super SUPER high, I don’t stress over it now. My pool will typically bounce between 150-180. Usually 180 is highest it gets and that is after a few days of evaporation. When I take the hose to top the pool off, it will dilute the pool a bit and bring my readings back into range. pH might be a slight low, and I just put alil pH plus in and I’m all good!

@@dreedy23691 kinda thinking the same thing. Water is crystal clear and my kids are happy.

Test strips suck. Get a taylor test kit.

Definitely on to ensure the proper mixing of the acid.

You have to drain water to lower calcium, you want it to be in the range of 150-300ppm. Although in AZ some freshly filled pools can start off above 400ppm

1 oz is "1 part" or 2 oz is "1 part". or 3oz is "1 part" - or what ever measure.. then what he says is make 10 parts to 1 in the mix - AND the water goes in the bucket FIRST..

lol. you pick what is a part based on what you have to measure. A cup, a gallon, a truckload...

These guys are jerks. Parts just means fractions. So 1 part chemical to 9 parts water is 1/10.

yep that's where we're at, aeriate the water and add acid when the ph swings up enough to bring down to 7.2 with acid, takes weeks

That's what happened with me but with my hot tub. HIGH alkalinity low PH. So I focused on getting the alkalinity to an optimal range. The pH was giving me a headache dealing with it, so I literally forgot about the ph and just focused on the alkalinity , the culprit, first. It did bring the PH down to 6.8 which was good in my situation because once the alkalinity was locked in, just letting it aerate brought the pH back to where I wanted it. And it's been perfect ever since. I confirm it every once in awhile with my water testing strips and confirmed with my water drop test kit.. Which is at 7.4. It takes time but air doesn't cost any money which is great when it comes to pool and spa chemicals. It took several hours for the pH to back up to normal range but considering that it wasn't low for a long long time, I didn't worry about it hurting my spa. If my pH was low for a long of time, then yes I would have done something about that. Now the alkalinity and the pH are stable since I fixed the alkalinity problem. I was at the same shoes wondering how the heck can I have very high alkalinity and very low ph?! I used to think they kind of travel together, but when I had very high alkalinity, I would put pH Down but soon after the pH would be Sky High again which was a waste of money. But when your alkalinity is too high you'll notice your pH is never going to stay locked in even after you get the pH where you want it to. and you'll have to keep putting pH Down in a hot tub. I refill my hot tub every 3 months and here where I live in Texas, I always have to lower the alkalinity just a tiny bit and then it's good to go. And I was thinking why the heck is my alkalinity astronomical? And then I remembered a day or so before that, me and my husband were sitting outside about to take my almost three year old in and right within an arm's length of me. Of course the water was cool, not hot since it's really hot here. My son who was right next to me decided he had to dump the rest of his orange juice in the hot tub. At the time I was thinking dang it, no! But considering it was just a small amount of orange juice, whatever. But the next day when I tested my water, my alkalinity was up there. I am almost certain that is why I got into this mess, the freaking orange juice because I never had this issue with numbers all over the place this bad.. Even though you have a pool and I have a hot tub, it's one in the same with ph and alkalinity water balancing. At first it was very confusing but now I could pretty much handle any kind of problem after hours of research on the internet. Of course a hot tub is a lot smaller in your pool and I know that I can get my pH to rise quicker in a hot tub since it has so many jets in such a small amount of space. I know it's frustrating but maybe call your local pool supply place because you don't want to waste a bunch of money and product if there is a simpler solution for what you're dealing with. I'm not an expert but that is my solution. That's what worked for me dealing with my water issue even though I have a hot tub. I have my temperature set to 94 which is not hot at all.

Eileen Fuentes Orange juice! No!!! Lol. I’m so protective of my pool water, it’s a little ridiculous. My family is tired of me fretting of the water. I need to chill out a bit, first off. Secondly, so I haven’t messed with the alkalinity by adding acid to bring it down for weeks. However, the ph hasn’t changed either. It’s stable at 7.2. So should I just leave it well enough alone? Are there any problems with higher alkalinity, besides ph fluctuations, which I’m not experiencing? Like, does high alkalinity impact the effectiveness of chlorine?

Coco Savage Thanks for that advice. I have been aerating more and making sure the filter is really clean. I feel like I’m constantly adding chlorine though. I’ve been using a non-chlorine pool shock, it maybe I need to try a chlorine shock to get things back in balance.

It's just safer. Gets everywhere if it splashes on accident

Yup, that's how I do it too. I have an in ground 20k gallon, with a 1.5hp pump. I carefully pour the whole gallon slowly above the return, not the skimmer side, ( pump on high is 20gpm) so your really just diluting into a 20,000 gallon bucket, just pour slowly, and just above the surface, you probably do that already. I always use the full bottle, that's not a chemical you want sitting around on your garage floor or shelf waiting for an accident! Scary stuff bro.

I'm a pool tech and have been for a little while now. Adding the acid directly to the pool is okay if the system is running so the water is mixing the acid around and diluting it. If you don't want the system on or have a system that isn't operational you could use a pool brush to stir the water manually but this isnt recommended for every application as it doesn't do as good of a job mixing. If the system isn't on or you don't stir it yourself, the acid is heavier than water and will sit on the bottom of the pool. Long term this will cause damage to the plaster and will eventually force you to re-plaster the pool.

@@bruceeverett5372, that 1 gallon muriatic acid will make your pool very low PH, not balance. I usually use Taylor Acid demand test, 20K gal pool, 7.4 target PH, 1 drop is 1 pint MA needed, 2 drop need 2 pint.

@@kylem2604 your explanation is just what I was looking for today, thanks.

Get a lot of aeration going with a water fall or spa jets to raise your PH then add acid and repeat.

I use Magic Acid now same strenght but a bit more costly than the regular muriatic acid but no fumes and doesn't burn you, still use protective gear but stopped using the mask now.

fill a galon with water (90%) and add some acid from the bottle. You don't have to be super precise. The whole idea of diluting it is because working with undiluted acid is a bit dangerous. Wether you dilute it 10x, 15x or 8x it should not matter one bit

Lower the alkalinity and just increase the pH with pH increaser.

@@SwimUniversity But that sounds counter productive to the layman. One counters the other - please explain!

@@johnlloyd2513 Same question... This should be a video all in it's own @Swim University. Thanks!

Wait a least a few hours between adding chemicals. Let the chemicals mix properly and test it before adding the next.

@@SwimUniversity Honestly... don't waste your time and money! Get a saltwater system!!! I did and instead of spending 500 or more a season on chemicals Im down too 60 without all the hassle. I do use muriatic acid at opening and Im usually good all season. I have a 8000 gallon above ground pool

If the water has no chlorine you will get "Green Algae", if the pool does have chlorine then green algae won't be able to survive. More than likely you have what is called Mustard Algae, it has more of a yellowish color to it. If so pick up some Copper Algaecide and read the instructions carefully.

Whoa.. what the update?

I’d like to know also. We are in this situation now. Used an entire gallon and nothing

Bring the alkalinity down, then re-raise the pH

What is your pH at? Because your pool is so small, high temps can cause pH to rise.

@@SwimUniversity on the strips it is almost the highest read color PH/Alk

Bring down alkalinity first with pH decreaser or muriatic acid, then raise pH with pH increaser

My intex pool has 4500 gallons of water. From day 1 the alkalinity and PH were off the charts. I added 20 ounces of muriatic acid at a time..now I have used the entire gallon and my levels are still at the highest levels according to 2 different brands of test strips??? I dont really want to add more. What do you recommend?

@@ericmuller3339 make sure your test kits test for phosphate. It sounds like it could be really high which would promote algae growth. If so you would need to add a phosphate remover.

Is the pool green at all?

@@isaacmarin9353 Not green. Actually crystal clear. I have some algae that settles to bottom of pool...I vacuum that out with my sand filter and discharge it to my lawn.

@@ericmuller3339 what’s your ph and alkalinity levels reading

Also 5 ppm chlorine

Add 1/2 gallon of acid every week til the alkalinity is between 80 and 120 then use a pH Up product( soda ash ) to put the pH in range without knocking off the alkalinity levels

Carlos, you need to state your pool volume in gallons, or you best not use any of the answers you'll get!

One theory for natural water balance is to use aeration! A fountain, spray feature or waterfall feature naturally aerate the water, supposedly, helping keep alkalinity levels in check. 👍

@@Rhifan01 cool idea - it would even look nice. I'll have to check that out!

thats why im here but sadly he didn't answer you.

I have sort of the same situation...over 200 ppm alkalinity but Ph is just about 7.2. Someone else below asked the same question and pool dude responded with "Lower the alkalinity and just increase the pH with pH increaser." So, not super detailed but I guess it doesn't need to be too detailed....

Ashley Kruempel I’m finding the answer to be lower alkalinity and ph then aerate or add ph up to increase ph back to 7.2.

I'm a pool tech and a lot of what this guy said goes completely against what I see when servicing pools. I tend to see Alkalinity drop and ph rise over time, not the reverse. So in my experience I would just give it a little time. If not, it may be cheaper to have a pro come service the pool just to get it back on track

Any time. The sunlight doesn't matter here.

@@SwimUniversity -- Well isn't that something. I'd always heard, "Acid in the day, Chlorine at night."

@@CitizenPerkins you add muriatic acid during the day so that it has enough time to mix before adding your chlorine at night. Since you want to get your pH and alkalinity right before adding cholesterol. That's the only reason I can think of to add it during the day... But the guy is right. Sunlight doesn't affect muriatic acid like it does chlorine... If you're plan isn't to add chlorine asap, you can add the muriatic anytime.

😂😂 big facts

There was a point? I thought we were watching Batman 🤷🏻‍♂️