Keeping a pool looking good goes beyond skimming leaves and vacuuming the floor — it’s also about good water chemistry. Concern for homeowners is that one common problem many will experience in their pools is high alkalinity. Can a pool have too much alkaline? Even if you are using a pool cleaning robot every day, excess alkalinity makes you water less comfortable and causes damage to equipment.
The Significance of Alkalinity in Pool Water
Total alkalinity acts as a buffer to stabilize pH, preventing the level from spiking or crashing rapidly. Total alkalinity levels in pools should ideally be within the 80–120 ppm range. If alkalinity is on the high end, you can no longer effectively control your pH, which leads to a whole war of issues —issues that any high-quality robotic pool cleaner can’t solve on its own.
How Do You Know Your Pool’s Alkaline is Too High
If your pool’s water has an alkalinity higher than 120 ppm, the following might seem familiar:
Cloudy or hazy water
Ineffective use of Chlorine (causing low level of sanitation)
Lime scale on walls and in equipment
Problems in controlling PH, Which may lead to high PH values
itchy eyes, dry skin after cleaning every day
If you are using a pool vacuum cleaner, skimmer, or a pool vacuum with these issues, they will remain until you have fixed the chemical balance properly.
Robot Pool Cleaner – Chemical Balance in The Pool – What It Should Do
Mechanical robot pool cleaner is necessary to lessen the organic matter, better circulation and maintenance but it’s not enough to treat alkalinity. But the latter is second fiddle:
Prevents scale build-up by keeping surfaces clean
Eliminates particles that cause pH to drift
It provides you with a balanced distribution of chemicals when used with a pool booster pump
High-tech scrubbers like Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra, Beatbot AquaSense 2 Pro, and Beatbot AquaSense 2 has smart cleaning paths, vertically climbing walls, and pieces of debris filtering to ensure water is kept clean.
How to Reduce Alkalinity in a Pool
If your alkalinity is high:
Test the water with a quality test kit.
Add muriatic acid or dry acid to the deep end of the pool.
Turn on your pump or switch on your robot pool to move the chemicals around.
Re-test the water after 6 hours, and adjust as necessary.
Your pool vacuum robot might be able to keep the surfaces free of debris, but responsible chemical usage is necessary to maintain safe, balanced water.
ALK, Algae, and Water Quality
Too much alkalinity may lower your chlorine’s power to kill off any algae. Once algae develop:
If algae is heavy, scrub and vacuum with pool vacuum for algae
For extreme buildup, consider an acid wash (We’ve got a tutorial on how to acid wash pool)
Use wall climbing pool cleaner or swimming pool robot cleaner for hard to reach places产品描述
Can a pool robot suck up algae? Yes — especially advanced models with dual scrubbing brushes and the micro-filtering capabilities that many maytronics pool cleaner and Beatbot systems have in them.
When to Drain Your Pool
In extreme cases in which your ISTM still exceeds the recommended ISTM even after supplementation, you will need to dilute or replace your water. Drain Inground Pool Without Pump Without a submersible pump, find out how to drain an inground pool without a pump with a siphon hose or gravity down method.
From there, re-test your water, and add any necessary products to re-adjust the alkalinity and pH — run your robot pool cleaner, and you are good to go (NOTE: it may be beneficial to re-test later in the week to ensure your levels are stable).
What is a Pool Booster Pump and Do You Need One?
In the case your robotic cleaner connects to a pressure side port, a pool booster pump will optimize flow and performance. And although most newer pool cleaning robot models are truly plug-and-play and don’t require a booster, both older units and pressure-side ones can still require it for peak performance.
Conclusion
So what does it mean if a pool is too alkaline? The result: cloudy water, inadequate sanitation, and long-term damage to your pool and equipment. A high-powered robot pool cleaner, such as the Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra, Beatbot AquaSense 2 Pro or Beatbot AquaSense 2, will certainly help — but it won’t fully fix chemical imbalances. Checking Regularly ensures just the right Alkalinity levels for effective cleaning, and ultimately safer, cleaner water for your pool and everyone in it.
