Help with balancing!

[brenrn]

Well, we sure are enjoying our Caspian!!!  I'm having a problem balancing the TA and pH though  My Tiger River instructions say to keep the TA between 125-150 but when I get it up to about 120-130 my pH is around 7.8.  I've been using the pH/alkalinity down to lower the pH and when I get the pH in an acceptable range then the TA is too low!!!!  Very frustrating!  Should I try something else?

[cparlf]

Me too, I think us new users may tend to overmanage the water?  I am using bromine tabs, and the bromine is too low, not by much but enough to make me wonder.  PH was too low yesterday, I put in 1 oz PH up and now it is too high.  Alk is too low, PH too high, Bromine too low.  Temp set at 93.  I will let it settle a day and look at it tomorrow.

Need to buy shock, will look at box store at lunch and buy small amount since I leave too early and get home too late for our dealer.  Will visit dealer Saturday, as I want to buy my chem through them.  The old "need to be a customer to be treated like one" concept.

[tony]

TA of 120-130 is a little on the high side.  If you get your pH down to 7.4-7.6 and your TA is between 80-120, you should be just fine.  With balancing chems, add a little and wait.  Then test and add a little more if needed.  It will come around.  Ultimately, you will test once per week.

[HotTubMan]

I agree with Tony. I am a BioGuard/SpaGuard dealer. SpaGard recomends 125-150T.A. aswell. We instead recommend 80-120, you will use less TA+ and less PH- if you stay in that range, just dont let it dip much below 80.
We also encourage slightly higher Calcium Hardness. 150-200 results in much less foaming (all other factors being equal).