Neither of my pool builders pulled the lights for the startup. And I talked directly with the pebble plaster manufacturer on my last pool who said not to be concerned with the acid level, he said "don't worry about your equipment, the acid level will not harm it."

Having said that, (as I recall...its getting blurry) he indicated the startup as 3 gallons of acid per 10,000 gallons and your talking about going a bit more concentrated than that....just as an FYI.

You should end up around a pH of just less than Also, I was having to add more acid by day 4 because the plaster had neutralized all of the acid of the startup and I wanted to keep it below 7 for at least 7 days. So, you may find, your only at that pH for the first 24 hours.

I added 15 gallons of acid to my 38K gallon pool with light grey plaster. Brushing and more brushing.

After 24 hours my PH is somewhere south of 7 and TA is 160 using Taylor K-2006.

Should I be adding more acid to drive the TA down to zero? My fill water was ph 7.4, TA 285, CH 201.

Or should we just keep brushing? It seems like we still have a lot of plaster dust.

No, you can pretty much ignore your TA test right now as invalid with your pH that low. Don't bother measuring it until your pH is close to 7.4 You are getting "skewed" results. Keep brushing... Watch the pressure on your filter, you may need to clean your filter if you get too much plaster in there.