Baking Soda Lower Pool Ph

Adding baking soda to a pool will raise the ph but it will also raise total alkalinity so it s not a good solution when ph is too low but total alkalinity is not.

Baking soda lower pool ph. Balancing ph alkalinity sanitizer levels and minerals might seem like a feat only a chemist could achieve but with borax things just got easier. The fact that it is entirely natural and safe is an added advantage. Baking soda also known as sodium bicarbonate is naturally alkaline with a ph of 8. You can maintain your pool for.

It is the same or similar to the sodium hydrogen carbonate that you will find in a pool store. When the ph is low the total alkalinity is usually also low but in rare cases the alkalinity may be in the proper range between 80 and 120 parts per million while the ph is below 7 2. Many commercial pool products for raising alkalinity utilize baking soda as their main active ingredient. To lower the alkalinity in your pool try using a strong acid like muriatic acid sodium bisulfate or sulfuric acid all of which will lower the alkalinity.

If your pool s total alkalinity level is too low after adding sodium bisulfate raise it by adding an alkalinity increaser such as baking soda or sodium sesquicarbonate to the water. Alkalinity boosters for pool use are available in most pool and home supply stores. Let us take a look at some of the areas where it helps by raising the ph level. Soda ash if used correctly to raise ph is less likely to raise total alkalinity though it can still cause problems if overused.

The upside is that using baking soda will never make a pool s ph level higher than 8 3 and if the pool s ph level is higher baking soda will lower it but it s better at adjusting the overall alkalinity of the water. You have to add 1 5 lbs of baking soda to 10 000 gallons to total alkalinity by 10 ppm. So if very few service companies are purchasing soda ash one can extrapolate that either the ph in swimming pool water is never low or individuals are using sodium baking soda to adjust ph. Back in the day pool owners would turn to sodium carbonate or bicarbonate also known as soda ash and baking soda to increase the ph of their pool water when it got too acidic.

The ph level of baking soda is 8 3 so it takes a lot of it to raise a pool s overall ph level. Sodium bicarbonate more popularly known as baking soda will raise the alkalinity of pool water. This is the reason why using baking soda in different ways to raise the ph level is common and popular. In fact it is the latter that has become common practice often supported by the argument that sodium carbonate is more likely to cloud the water slightly upon addition.