Will shock raise the PH level in small pool?

Question

I had a soft-rubber lined in-ground fish pond with a waterfall & now, I am wanting to convert it to a wading/floating pool.

I have drained it, scrubbed it & now, refilled it...

Testing the chlorine & PH, I find that the chlorine is high(almost a 5) and the PH is very low (about 6.8)

Researching on-line, I came across someone who says that aerating the water well will help the ph levels come back up over the course of several days. Does anyone know if having a water pump & fountain constitutes as aerating the water well? And if so, if this will in fact raise the ph?

I have been told to Shock it.

But I have to plead ignorance...I read the Shock bottle and I don't see anywhere that it states it will affect either one of these.

If you cannot tell, I really do not know what I am doing and any guidance would be appreciated.

Answer 1

yes, chlorine will raise PH.  and what bob said.

Answer 2

Shock is chlorine. Chlorine has an inherently high pH. Any time you add chlorine to water it does raise the pH a bit, but it's not what you want to add here to raise your pH. 6.8 isn't bad by the way, since your  aerator pump is probably all plastic and no metal parts, but it won't help the chlorine work very well. Yes...it's there...you have the reading of 5.0, but with that pH being low and probably the total alkalinity being low to boot, the chlorine present isn't doing as good a job as it could.

Personally, I don't think you're going to have much success here unless you use a small cartridge filter. You see, the secret to having clear water is filtration, cleaning, sanitizer  and water balance. Even if you get your water balanced ( you use a product like pH Up to raise pH), you still lack proper filtration. I'm not saying what you're trying to do can't be done...just that it will probably be an endless source of frustration for you unless you add a filter here and get a test kit that also checks total alkalinity.

It may just be better to fill it, use it and dump it until the kids are going to use it again unless this is a particularly large plastic pond or you're on a well.



Edit: As I stated above. Shock is chlorine. It's an unstabilized and highly concentrated form of it, containing no cyanuric acid ( the stabilizer). The idea behind it, is to raise your chlorine levels temporarily, to what's called break point chlorination. The point where there's enough chlorine to oxidize all the nasties in the water. As it's doing this, the chlorine levels drop as it's used up. The sun's ultraviolet rays then knock out the remaining chlorine. Shock is designed this way so that your chlorine levels zoom up, kill stuff and then come back down so that it doesn't bother bathers later. That's why you wait at least 4 hours to use a pool after shocking. You don't want to be oxidized too!!!! :)

Also, as I stated earlier, chlorine ( all forms of it, both stabilized and unstabilized) have a high pH of their own. Everything has a pH level, even for example your blood. Either a positive ( above 7.0  is a base pH) or negative ( less than 7.0 and is acidic). 7.0 is bang on neutral. Chlorine's pH can be anywhere from 8.0 to 13, depending on the type used. It will raise your pH in the water, but doing it that way also increases your chlorine level to the point where you can't use the pool. Catch 22. This is where you need to use a product like pH Up ( a brand name). It raises the pH without doing anything else to the water.

I'm curious. What product did you add to the water when you say you "sanitized", or do you mean you just scrubbed it out? The term sanitized or sanitizer, in pool lingo is actually a chemical ( like shock, chlorine pucks, Bromine, non chlorine shock etc) that is used to oxidize organics .