Pool pH Made Simple: Raise It, Lower It, Lock It In

Fighting red eyes, cloudy water, or scale that keeps coming back? We unpack the exact chemistry that drives pool comfort and clarity, then give you a simple plan to control pH without wrecking alkalinity. You’ll learn why total alkalinity is the true pH buffer, how cyanuric acid and borates play supporting roles, and when to pick borax, baking soda, or muriatic acid to get fast, stable results.

We start with the essentials: what pH means for swimmer comfort, equipment protection, and chlorine strength. From there, we explain how high alkalinity blunts acid and traps you with rising pH, while low alkalinity removes the cushion and lets pH crash. We walk through smart targets for plaster, vinyl, and fiberglass pools, and show how trichlor tablets quietly push pH and TA in the background. If your salt pool drifts high, you’ll hear why turbulence from the cell accelerates pH rise and how borates at 50 ppm calm the swings while boosting chlorine performance.

Then we get practical. Skip the mess of soda ash and use 20 Mule Team Borax to raise pH cleanly with minimal impact on TA. Use baking soda only to raise alkalinity. When TA is sky-high, follow our proven cycle: create aeration with a submersible pump or water features, dose measured acid to lower TA, let turbulence lift pH back up without changing TA, and repeat until you’re in range. We also share dosing tips, why borates mean you’ll need a bit more acid, and how to set up a stable “buffer stack” that keeps water clear and comfortable.

• ideal pH targets for comfort and sanitizer strength
• corrosion risks at low pH and scaling at high pH
• alkalinity as the main pH buffer and target ranges
• cyanuric acid’s minor buffering and tablet effects
• borates at 50 ppm for pH stability in salt pools
• why muriatic acid lowers both pH and alkalinity
• why soda ash clouds water and spikes alkalinity
• borax as a cleaner way to raise pH
• baking soda for raising alkalinity only
• step-by-step aeration method to lower high alkalinity
• practical dosing notes and app recommen

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Chapters

• 1:51 Why pH Matters And Ideal Range
• 2:19 Comfort, Corrosion, And Chlorine Strength
• 4:45 Alkalinity As The Primary Buffer
• 7:35 Secondary Buffers: CYA And Borates
• 11:34 Acids, Soda Ash, And Borax Compared
• 15:22 Fixing High Alkalinity With Aeration
• 19:52 Salt Systems, Borates, And Final Rules
• 20:58 Resources And Coaching Invite

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:03

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. Someone had asked me to do a podcast using 20 mule team borax to raise pH in a pool, and I thought I would do that and also touch on pH buffers, raising or lowering pH. And I think this is an important topic for a lot of people out there who are struggling with high pH, lowering their pH, raising their pH, and everything related to the pH of the pool. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. From me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimming poollearning.com. So, what exactly is the pH in the pool? It's a measurement of how acidic or basic base or acid the water is on a scale from 0 to 14. And 7.0 is the neutral pH. Most pools, of course, should be kept above 7.2, and anywhere between 7.2 and 7.8, with 7.4 and 7.6 being considered ideal. Bob Lowry's target pH is 7.5. And it's because of the bather comfort. As the pH gets lower or even extremely high, it will disrupt bather comfort. You get the itchy eyes. A lot of people say, oh, the chlorine's making my eyes irritated, and you know, I'm allergic to chlorine or I have reaction to chlorine. When it's actually the low pH making their eyes red and itchy, making their skin itchy. It's not necessarily the chlorine in the pool. Unless, of course, the chlorine's at like 30 parts per million, then yeah, I think that would have an effect on that. And then really high pH also can cause some irritation as well, and it also allows the chlorine to be less effective at a very high pH. The lower the pH, the more effective the chlorine is in some regards. Of course, cyaneric acid is a big determiner of that as well. But if the pH drops below a certain level, below 7.0, if it's in the sixes, you could have corrosion of the pool parts. I've taken apart pool filters before that had a lot of you know rusting inside, even with the stainless steel. And one thing about stainless steel that a lot of people don't know is that there's actually different grades of stainless steel, and stainless steel can indeed rust if it's a lower grade stainless steel. So I've seen corrosion. Of course, heater parts will corrode as well. Check valves if the pH gets too low, and it's one of those things where you have to maintain the pH at a certain level for again bather comfort to avoid corrosion, of course, avoid scaling on the other end on high pH, and avoid cloudy water with really high pH as well. So the pH is a factor, and keeping it balanced in your pool is critical. It's one of those parameters or test factors that is not stable in the pool as well. So there's a lot of maintenance and adjusting of the pH. And so there are what we call pH buffers. So these buffers are in the water to keep the pH from moving up and down rapidly. The number one buffer in the pool is your alkalinity. Now the alkalinity is how alkaline the water is, and if the alkalinity is higher in the water, the acid from the or the pH, or I should say, when you put muatic acid, and let me just start over, when you add muitic acid to a pool with very high alkalinity, let's say it's at 180 or 200, that will neutralize a lot of the acid going into the pool, and it won't lower the you won't be able to lower the pH that rapidly or that much because of the high alkalinity in the pool. And I'll definitely do a podcast on alkalinity to go into more detail there. I don't want to confuse you too much. I'll just mention that aspect of alkalinity. If alkalinity is really low, let's say 50 or 40, then basically there's no buffer there for the pH. And so when you pour a quart of muric acid in, there's nothing in there buffering that acid, and the pH will drop very rapidly in the pool with very low alkalinity. And that's why the alkalinity is important and you need to keep it at a certain range. So if you have very high pH all the time, you can keep the alkalinity around 70 or 80 with no problem, and that way the acid has more of an effect on the pH and will actually lower it down and keep it lower, and you'll be able to adjust the pH easier. If the pH is really low in the pool, then of course you don't want to have the alkalinity down to 70 or 80. You would want to have the alkalinity higher. This is like for a vinyl or fiberglass pool, where the pH tends to drift down in those pool surfaces very rapidly. I wouldn't suggest keeping those at 80 alkalinity because then you're going to have a drop rapid drop in pH in the pool, and if you add any acids to the pool, it's going to get maybe in the corrosive level very rapidly. There's many of my group members that have taken over a vinyl pool where they tested the the pH and it was showing like low sickuses because they were using tablets in there, they weren't monitoring it, and the alkalinity was low in the pools, and so the of course the pH would go lower quicker with the lower alkalinity in the pool. So that's one buffer that's really important and really critical in the pool water. If you're having problems with high pH and your alkalinity is at 180, it's going to be very difficult for you to lower down that pH with the alkalinity that high in the pool. And they're kind of tied together hand in hand. When you lower the pH, you'll lower the alkalinity slightly with the muratic acid. But of course, there's ways of doing it. I'll touch on that to lower the alkalinity down as well, and not lower the pH down, or lower the pH down, but allow the pH to rise back up and continuously lower the alkalinity down until it gets into the range that you need it at to buffer the pH correctly. That's gonna make sense in a minute. Another pH buffer, believe it or not, is the cyaneric acid in the water. If you use trichlor tablets on your pool route, you'll notice that the pH is actually pretty stable in those pools, and you may even keep it at in an ideal range using maybe two one or two tablets a week in the pool, because of course the tablets have cyaneric acid in them, and the cyaneric acid has a low pH, you know, two or three. So that's lowering down the pH in the water, but it's also a buffer to the pH as well. So just be aware that cyaneric acid actually is a secondary buffer to pH. And this is a secondary minor buffering of the pH because of the fact, again, that it has a weak acid in it, and it's one of those things where it can lower the total alkalinity as you're having the tablet dissolve in the pool, and so it does contribute a small buffering element to the pH, it's not anywhere near as a buffer, as strong a buffer as the alkalinity level, of course, but it does affect the water and it does actually help you with the pH control because again the cyaneric acid does have some acid in it, and that's why if you're using tablets in a vinyl pool, which by the way, in most cases in a fiberglass or vinyl pool, using trichlorid tablets will definitely avoid any kind of warranty you have on that pool. So as the cyaneric acid actually dissolves in the water, it does absorb a small amount of the hydrogen ions in there, so there is a slight resistance downward the pH change as the cyaneric acid is dissolving. It also again has a low pH itself. So it's not again a primary buffer, but it is something to consider when you're talking about pH buffers. And then the last pH buffer that I'll mention are borates at 50 parts per million, and this is a secondary buffer to the pool. The cyaneric acid is a much weaker buffer than the borates in the pool. So basically, if you wanted a simplified reason why this happens, the boric acid, the boric borate iron plus hydrogen ion, if the pH tries to rise, the water becomes more base or basic. The boric acid can release hydrogen ions to resist that increase. If pH tries to drop, water becomes more acidic. The borate ion can absorb hydrogen ions, and this is why it resists the change and it stays very stable, especially in a saltwater pool, when you're using borates in the water, and it's a pretty fascinating product because it's also an algistat and it also enhances the chlorine in the pool at the same time. So if you are having trouble, if you have your alkalinity at 80 and your cyanuric acid level is you know at 70 or 80 also, and you're still having problems with the pH rising in the pool rapidly, especially in a saltwater pool, adding boric acid to the pool or borates to 50 parts per million, boric acid is how I add it to the pool, then you would have another buffer to the pH, which would prevent it from rising rapidly or dropping rapidly in the pool. So those are the buffers, and it's really important to know about this when you're talking about adding acid to lower pH and lower alkalinity. So let me give you the chemicals and what they actually do to the pool pH. Everyone's pretty familiar with muradic acid. When we say add acid to the pool to lower the pH, we're talking about muradic acid. The industry standard is 31%, and if you get it at Home Depot, you're probably like around 15% muritic acid, so you have to kind of double the ratio. One good app that I recommend is the poolcalculator.com, and this will actually tell you how much acid to add based on the alkalinity, the cyanaric acid level, the size of the pool, all these are things that are calculated, water temperature, and it'll give you the dosing based on the percentage of the marinic acid that you're using. And basically, the acid will lower the pH and it does lower total alkalinity as well. And then you have soda ash that raises pH and it also raises total alkalinity. Now I don't use soda ash at all. I don't even buy the product or carry the product because it raises pH and alkalinity, but it's really a messy product, it clouds up the water. Even if you put it through the skimmer, it's gonna blow through the return lines and cloud everything up and fall out on the pool bottom, especially in colder water. So I don't use it. To me, it's not a very useful product, and it's also a little bit toxic, and I just don't use soda ash, period. What I use instead, and this is how I began the podcast, is 20 meal team borax. You can get this at Walmart Target, I think Home Depot carries it as well. You'll find it in the laundry aisle because it's a you know that's where they keep it. It's like it's kind of like cleaner laundry enhancer. Now the pH of borax is not quite as high as soda ash, I think soda ash is like 11 or 12, maybe even higher, but the pH of borax is about 9.2, 9.3. And what I like about the borax is that it does seem to have a quicker and more effective effect on the pH. So if you have a pH at 6 and you're using soda ash, for some reason it will take a huge amount of it to raise it up. With the bore 20 ml team borax, you can use the amount based on the again. The poolcalculator.com has a spot in there for borax raising pH. When you use this, it raises the pH really effectively, and it doesn't raise the alkalinity nearly as much as soda ash does. In fact, it doesn't raise it very much at all in my testing, and a lot of the guys in my group mentioned the same thing. Go use you know 20 or 30 pounds of the 2018 borax and the pH goes up, but the alkalinity doesn't go up much at all. So that's why I like using the borax to raise the pH and not use soda ash. Again, it's something that you can try and you'll find that the 20 m1 borax is much more effective in raising pH than soda ash is. Baking soda is something that a lot of people think raises the pH, but it doesn't really raise the pH, it actually raises the alkalinity up. So if you have low alkalinity, if you're at 60 or 50, you can use sodium bicarbonate or baking soda as it's known to raise the alkalinity, but it doesn't really affect the pH very much at all, if at any. And the bag of the baking soda when you buy it at Costco, the big bag, it shows like it raising pH in the pool, or it tells you that it can, but it's really not really effective at all. And I would say use it only to raise alkalinity and don't use sodium bicarbonate to try to raise the pH in the pool, it just will not be effective. Now I did mention that I was going to explain how to lower really high alkalinity down in the pool. And the only way to do this effectively, let's say your alkalinity is at 200, your pH is at 7.6. Now, of course, you can't add two gallons of muratic acid to the pool to bring the alkalinity down from 200 to 100, because then the pH would just bottom out, it would zero out the pH basically, cause all kinds of problems with the pool, and it wouldn't be recommended to do a zero alkalinity in most cases, unless you know what you're doing. So here's the easiest way to do this and the most effective way to do it, and it's called aeration or turbulence. But here's what you want to do: you want to get a submersible pump and you want to put it on the first step of the pool and point the discharge upwards. So you're shooting the water 10 feet, kind of like a water feature. Now, if the pool has water features, definitely turn those on full blast and get those going. But most pools don't, and so you you want to use the sub pump on the first step with the water shooting up, plug it in, turn it on, and start the aeration of the pool. And then you're gonna lower the the pH down using meritic, you're gonna lower the alkalinity down, sorry, using meritic acid. This will lower the pH as well, because they're tied together. I typically don't add more than half a gallon of meritic acid to a pool just as a rule. It's one of those kind of things that sticks in my head. Now, if the pool's gigantic, you know, they throw that rule out the window. But in most backyard pools that are like 15,000 gallons, adding more than half a gallon can be detrimental. So you have the sump pump going, shooting the water up. You add the maritic acid, let's say you want to start with a quart of maritic acid or one fourth of a gallon, or you want to do a half a gallon, that's fine. As long as you have the aeration going, that's going to raise the pH up, and you really want to have this going continuously without unplugging the sump pump. So this raises the pH up, and you may even want to raise the pH up to 8 8.2 to make this more effective, even. So as you're adding meritic acid, the alkalinity is dropping, so it goes from 200 to 180. Then you go back the next day, or if you're a homeowner, you can do this every six hours or so, add more acid to the pool, have the aeration still going continuously, the sub pump running, and then the alkalinity is down to 160. Again, go back again, add more acid to the pool, keep the aeration going to keep the pH, to keep raising the pH. And eventually by doing this over the course of a few days or a week or two weeks, you're gonna lower the alkalinity down from 200 to 100 very safely with aeration or turbulence of the water, and that causes the pH to go up, but the alkalinity does not change with aeration. Just that's an important term here. The pH will go up with aeration, but the alkalinity will not change, and the muatic acid will actually lower the alkalinity down over time. And that's basically how you control the pH in the pool, recognizing that alkalinity, cyanaric acid, and the boric borates in the water, the 50 parts per million, all play a part in buffering the pH in the pool. And it's one of those things that as I should note that if you add bories to the pool to 50 parts per million, it'll take more meritic acid to lower down the pH because it's being buffered. So just keep that in mind. Even if your alkalinity is at 80 or 90, if the bories are at 50 parts per million, you're gonna need a little bit more of it to lower, you're gonna need a little more acid to lower it down because of the buffer that the borates provide to the water with the alkalinity as well. And again, I can't emphasize enough that the alkalinity is a huge factor in pH control, regardless of borates in the water. If you keep your alkalinity lower, you're going to have an easier time lowering the pH or keeping it low versus having the alkalinity really high. And if you have really high alkalinity, really low pH, the aeration is a perfect thing you can do. If your pH is already at 7.2 and you want to lower the alkalinity down from 200, I would start the aeration process early, get that pH up to 8, and then start using the acid to lower down the alkalinity. I wouldn't recommend doing this if the pH is like at 7 already, because then it's going to drop the pH down, even with the alkalinity and the the aeration is still at a dangerous level. So get that pH up if it's really low. Typically, when the alkalinity is at 200, the pH is usually pretty high in the pool as well. And this is a great way to control the pH in a saltwater pool, adding the boris to 50 parts per million, having the alkalinity at 70 or 80. And then if you do need to keep lowering the alkalinity, the saltwater system already does aeration for you. The salt cell, if you've ever seen it operating, is quite turbulent, and so the aeration is being created already. And that's why you don't really need the aeration when you're doing this kind of method with a saltwater pool. Typically, the alkalinity doesn't go up that high in the pool, but you can still do the same process with the aeration with a saltwater pool if necessary. And this is basically how you do it: acid to lower the pH and alkalinity, 20 ml team borax to raise up the pH, sodium bicarbonate or baking soda to raise the alkalinity without raising the pH, aeration to raise the pH, and not to change the alkalinity, using meritic acid to lower down the alkalinity at the same time you're doing the aeration. Pretty basic, pretty easy. And that's a crash course on adjusting the pH and at the same time the alkalinity in your pool. If you're looking for more podcasts, you can go to my website, swimmingprolearning.com on the banner. There's a podcast icon. Click on that, that'll show you a drop down menu over 1800 podcasts. And if you're interested in the coaching program, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a great week and God bless.