How do you keep your water clean? How do you keep the green water away, the cloudy water away, the scaling, the bacteria all that you do it with water chemistry? That's right well part of the way, but water chemistry plays an important role, whether you're new to pool ownership or you need a refresher. We have you covered, but of course, if we try to cover everything about pool chemistry in one video, it would be like a three-hour movie and I'm not supplying popcorn for everybody, just crazy in movie theater prices. So we broken pool chemistry up into smaller little bits, and this bit is all about pH alkalinity and calcium hardness, let's dive in alright quick disclaimer. Everyone has their own methods when it comes to pool chemistry, but at the end of the day, we all just want to help.

You take care of your pool and we all want your pool to be crystal clear and and fun to swim in. That's it. The information in this video is based on my own personal experience in the pool industry and all the research we've done here at swim, University, calm and if I missed anything, please leave a comment below to let me know so. First, let's talk about pH what the is pH.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry so pH is the measure of how acidic or how basic your water is. It's on a scale from 0 to 14, where 7 is perfectly in the middle, so anything below 7. It means your water is very, very acidic and anything above 7 means your water is basic in the pool world. We want to keep your pH between 7.4 and 7.6 now.

The reason we even talk about pH is that it plays such an important role when it comes to your sanitizer, specifically chlorine, when your pH is at the perfect level. Between 7.4 and 7.6, chlorine does its best work and when you have really acidic water, it can do a lot of damage to your pipes into your filter system into your to the pool itself and not to mention when you open your eyes, underwater, which some people Tend to do it's gon na burn like hell when your water is basic or really dry, when you get out of the pool you're gon na notice that you dry up much, which may sound like a good thing, but it really isn't because it can do a Lot of damage to your pool, I could do damage to your filter system and, of course, it's not gon na make the chlorine work effectively. So we don't want your pH to be below 7.4 and we really don't want it to be above 7.6 in our world. We want that to be right, smack dab in the middle at 7.5 pH next.

Let's talk about alkalinity alkalinity is ph's bodyguard. This is how I had to describe it because pH is really volatile if it rains, if you jump in, if you put a beach ball in your pool, I mean I'm being drastic here, but pH kind of bounces, all over the place and alkalinity by adding alkalinity To your pool, it's sort of the pH buffer and in fact it is the pH buffer it stops or it takes the big hits so that your pH doesn't go wonky all over the the 0 to 14 scale. It kind of stays in the middle. The alkalinity takes the brunt of the hit, and so with alkalinity we recommended you keep your your readings between a hundred and 150 parts per million of alkalinity, so alkalinity and pH go hand-in-hand.

They work together. Usually, if you have low pH, it means you may have low alkalinity and vice versa. If you have high ph, it could mean you have high alkalinity and when you add chemicals to either increase or decrease the pH or the alkalinity they're gon na both move at the same time, because again they work together. Now, we've kind of discussed, pH and alkalinity.

Those are the two biggest most important things when it comes to pool chemistry. If the pH and the alkalinity are in balance and they're there they're between their ideal ranges, then you are in a good spot. So how do we get there? How do we get the pH and the alkalinity to be balanced? I know a lot of people struggle with trying to keep their pool balanced. I know it can be tough, but here's what we're gon na do.

The first thing we're gon na do is make sure that you get your water checked. You can use a liquid test kit or some test strips or you can bring it into your local pool, store to get it checked for you. Whichever way you measure, or whichever way you test the pool, you know where you stand with your readings, you want to make sure that your pH, where you or you want to make sure you know where your pH is, and you want to make sure you know Where your alkalinity currently is all right, so let's assume that you get your water checked and the pH and the alkalinity are low. What I would do in this case is, I would add, just alkalinity increaser or sodium bicarbonate, which is also baking soda.

You add that to the water, and you want to use a chemical dosing chart if you don't know how much to add, don't just add a bunch of baking soda or add a bunch of alkalinity increase their into the water. You need to know how much you need to increase by and if you want to have chemical dosing charts, you can go to some university comm or you can check out our pool care Handbook, which has all the dosing charts in it for all the chemicals we're Gon na talk about so now that you know how much you need to increase by and let's say your alkalinity is sitting at about fifty parts-per-million and we want to get it up to about a hundred and twenty-five parts per million. You want to add 75 parts per million, and so, depending on how many gallons your water is, which is something that's incredibly important to know beforehand, based on how many gallons you have you'll know how many pounds or how many ounces or whatever you need to know In order to increase the alkalinity in your pool when you increase the alkalinity to the correct range, which I recommend being at a hundred and twenty-five parts per million, it is going to bring the pH up with it and hopefully, it'll bring up the pH in the Correct range: what you're going to want to do is, after you add alkalinity to your water, and the way you add alkalinity to your water is simply by broadcasting it into the water sprinkling it in making sure your filters running, so it mixes it in and then A couple hours later, you want to check it to make sure that your alkalinity is in the correct range, and hopefully your pH is in the correct range as well. Let's say pH is a little bit low after you add the opportunity you can add, pH increase or to just increase the pH.

You can also use sodium borate to increase pH, or it's also known as borax. So in this case, we have the real big tune, which is you want to tune up the alkalinity with alkalinity increase or sodium bicarbonate? And then you want to fine tune, the pH with a sodium borate or a pH increase, or to get the alkalinity in the pH right in the right level. So what if your pH and a planaria are too high? This is less common. But if you have a concrete pool, you might experience this and there's a host of other factors, but basically you want to add an outgoing to decrease or a pH decrease, or in this case I would use something like muriatic acid, which we have an entire video On to lower the alkalinity or you can use pH decrease or when you add either of these things, they're gon na bring both of those readings down both the pH and the alkalinity.

And again, once you add this, you want to know how many gallons your pool is. You want to know how much you need to decrease by and when you add it to the water, wait a few hours get it rechecked and make sure that you hit your levels again. Ph and alkalinity are the most crucial parts of pool chemistry. Keeping them balanced means staying on top of it.

It means getting your water checked, frequently making sure that the pH and alkalinity are always in range, and, yes, things are gon na affect it. We're talking about an outdoor pool here. Unless you have an indoor pool, then you have less chances of this happening, but an outdoor pool. We have rain, we have swimmers, we have the environment.

All of these things are gon na cause. Your pH and Aplin need to kind of increase and decrease, as well as adding other pool chemicals like chlorine, so just make sure that the pH and athlete are always in balance. And if you do, that, that's like 75 % of all pool chemistry is just keeping those things in check all right. Finally, I want to talk about calcium hardness.

What is calcium hardness? It is the measurement of how hard or soft your water is, and it's very similar to pH in the sense that having very soft water can cause corrosion on your pool. Walls in your filter system and having very high calcium, can cause scaling to the inside of your pipes or your hoses or the pool itself and can cause long-term issues. So it's important to keep the calcium hardness level and an ideal range between 175 and 225 parts per million, and the good news about calcium hardness is it's not as volatile as pH and alkalinity? It's not gon na change drastically, with or with rain or with environmental elements. Usually you add calcium harness at the beginning of the pool season, and it will stay in your pool for the rest of the season.

Now, if you use calcium hypochlorite shock, you are adding little bits of calcium into your water all season long, but if you're not gon na use that shock, then just keep an eye on the calcium, hardness level. You may not see it go up and down very drastically, but just make sure it's in the 175 to 225 parts per million range. So if you want more information on taking care of your swimming pool, specifically when it comes to water chemistry, when it comes to pH alkalinity, calcium, hardness chlorine, all of that stuff, you can check out our pool care handbook and video course which will teach you everything You need to know about taking care of your pool, especially water chemistry, once you get it once you buy this, it is constantly updated and you have it for life and because you're watching this video - and thank you so much for watching this video you're gon na Get a discount of 10 % off by using the promo code, video just go to swimming diversity, comm, slash, pool care handbook, get your copy today. So thank you so much appreciate you watching this video again.

If you have any questions or comments - or you think I missed anything in this video, please leave a comment below and if you want more information on pool and hot tub, maintenance go to some university comm and subscribe to our youtube channel appreciate it. Thank you. So much and as always happy swimming.