We had a pool installed a couple of months ago and checked the alkalinity to notice that it is a little low. but the test kit i used doesnt specify if its the same for saltwater pools.
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Your total alkalinity needs to be 80 to 120 ppm no matter. This serves to act as a buffer to keep the pH from swinging around all over the place. It also keeps the water from acting corrosively and damaging your pool and / or pump. Baking soda is the best thing to use to increase total alkalinity. A four pound box of the stuff will raise your TA about 30 ppm in a 15,000 gallon pool. Also important to concrete pools is to keep the calcium hardness high enough, (between 200 and 400 ppm), to keep the water from leaching calcium from the pool walls and damaging the finish.
The salt water systems all use salt to create a form of chlorine called sodium hypochlorite. They do this by passing an electrical current through salt water and voila! Sodium hypochlorite! This is the same chemical that we think of as household bleach. Sodium hypochlorite is very alkaline and will make your pH high. Chlorine does not activate well in with a high pH,so you have to use acid to compensate and bring the pH back down. One eight oz. cup of muriatic acid in a 15,000 gallon pool will lower your pH by about two points ( 8.0 to a reading of 7.8 for example). It’s important to keep the pH between 7.4 and 7.6 Add acid one or two cups at a time with the pump running, wait a day and retest. That’s about it. Good luck, and happy swimming!
I do believe they are different