Why alkalinity is the buffer (and why you fix it before pH)

Añadido: 2026-06-05

[00:00:00]Hi, I'm the pool science guy and today we're going to talk about alkalinity.

[00:00:03]Alkalinity in the industry is considered the buffer. But what does that mean and why are we using that term? The term buffer comes from alkalinity being kind of a force field around the pool system.

[00:00:14]It can directly impact how active your pH is going to be or how stuck your pH is going to be. In the industry, alkalinity is considered 80 to 150 as acceptable and 80 to 120 as ideal. I'm not going to get into the difference between a salt system and and a chlorine system. The major majority, that's pretty much standard. Alkalinity is not just a measurement. It's actually a capacity. It's the capacity of your water's ability to neutralize acid within a system. Alkalinity itself is very important and in fact should be prioritized over pH most of the time.

[00:00:47]I'm going to give you a real-time example. Let's say I have a pool and I need to adjust my pH level and my alkalinity is at 200. So, I'm going to take this piece of paper and I'm actually going to fold it to make it a little bit thicker. And here I have some moratic acid. This is not real muratic acid. This is just water. But if my alkalinity is blocking my pool system and I'm adding acid, the amount of acid that actually gets into the pool is very minimal. It actually will not directly impact that pH. This is protecting the pH too much. My pH may be stuck. You may have to add a lot of acid and you may have unpredictable results. The same is true if I'm adding acid to a pool. My alkalinity is too low. I essentially have a wide open hole in my force field and acid's going straight to my pH. My pH could act erratic. It could drop dramatically. You could have a 7.5 and go down to 7.0 just adding a small amount of acid because your alkalinity is not doing its job. It's not protecting with the right force field around that pH molecule. So alkalinity is very important. In fact, if you're going to run a test, whether it's a test strip, a DBD test kit, or you take it into your local pool shop, and you get a pH that's out of balance and an alkalinity that's out of balance, it's recommended you focus on the alkalinity first because you can't predict how you're going to change your pH. And predictability in a pool system is everything. Thanks for watching. If you like this content, like and subscribe.

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