50 ppm Borax

[Henry3]

Hi,
What's the advantage to having Borax level at 50ppm? I noticed it on Mike's calculator, and on the "Alex" printout from the pool store (listed as Optimizer +) My water showed 20 ppm. I had them test since I was waiting on my CYA refill for my PS233. Also what is the Adjusted Akalinity vs TA ? Pool is crystal clear using BBB.
Thanks,
Henry

[waterbear]

Hi,
What's the advantage to having Borax level at 50ppm? I noticed it on Mike's calculator, and on the "Alex" printout from the pool store (listed as Optimizer +) My water showed 20 ppm.
It is supposed to be algaestatic (jury still out on this) and helps to buffer the water and keep the pH more stable (most likely true)
I had them test since I was waiting on my CYA refill for my PS233. Also what is the Adjusted Akalinity vs TA
When you put CYA in the pool it forms a secondary buffer system of cyauric acid and cyanurates. this will test as total alkalinity but it is not part of the carbonic acid/bicarbonte/ carbonate buffer system that is what we are wanting to measure when we test TA. There is a mathamatical correction that is done to the TA reading based on the pH and the ppm CYA in the water. The ajusted TA is lower than the tested TA. The jury is still out on whether this correction is of any value in most circumstances.
? Pool is crystal clear using BBB.
Thanks,
Henry
Hope this helps.

[Henry3]

Thanks Evan,
I knew someone here would know.
Henry

[mwsmith2]

I'm trying the borax trick again. I always get mustard pretty bad, and with the recent heat wave here, water temps are pushing 90 (!) I bought some test strips, which seem to work ok (drops based borate test is prohibitively expensive!) I need to drop another box in, but from the 1 box I put in, it kinda seems to have slowed stuff a bit. Also, somewhat hard for me to tell, since i've been getting home later in the evening, so there's not enough light to really see. This weekend I will have the other box in there, which should put me right at 45 - 50 ppm borate. I'll give it a good brushing and if it doesn't come back, I'll claim success!

Michael

[CAP]

mwsmith2,

I am located in north east texas (near Longview) and I know what you mean about the recent heat. My water temp is now 90.

I also always get mustard algae (for 10 years now) but it has started a little early this year. I'm very interested in hearing more about this borax trick your experimenting with.

I did a search on borax here to try and find out more about using it for an algae preventer but I didn't find a lot of information. How do you test for borax PPM? You mentioned some test strips for this, where did you get those?

My pools PH always seems to want to run on the high side. Would this prevent me from running that much borax in my pool, since borax raises PH?

Thanks

[mwsmith2]

These are the ones I got:

http://diywatertesting.com/aquachek_borate.html

You are correct in that it is a algae preventer, not an algaecide. I keep making that mistake! oops.

Yes, your pH will go up when you add borax, but then you just add muriatic acid to bring it back down.

Michael

[CAP]

Test strips have been ordered.....thanks for the link. Now I'll just wait for the strips to come in and arm myself with some muratic acid and hit wal-mart for some borax.

According to the bleach calculator for borax I would need to add about 20 lbs of borax to my 20,000 gallon pool to achieve close to 50 ppm borax? Am I figuring that right? That sounds like an awful lot of borax. Just want to make sure I'm figuring that right. Obviously I wouldn't add all of that borax at once but add it over several days, and adjust the PH back down with acid.

Does this sound about right? What is Ben's take on this borax method?

Thanks again for the help.

[Henry3]

Cap,
The BioGuard "Alex" printout from the pool store shows Borate level also (as Optimizer +). Here is the MSDS for Optimizer.
http://www.bioguard.com/msds/docs/123509.PDF

Henry

[mwsmith2]

Each box is 4#, so 5 boxes sounds about right.


Michael

[waterbear]

These are the ones I got:

http://diywatertesting.com/aquachek_borate.html

You are correct in that it is a algae preventer, not an algaecide. I keep making that mistake! oops.

Yes, your pH will go up when you add borax, but then you just add muriatic acid to bring it back down.

Michael ProTeam Supreme is basically the same thing as borax and identical to Bioguard Optimizer. Proteam recommend addings 10 oz. of muriatic acid per pound of tetraborate to keep the PH from shooting up (this will also create the boric acid/borate secondary buffer system that is supposed to help stabilize the pH) The Proteam Supreme is Sodium Tetraborate Pentahydrate while good old 20 Mule Team is Sodium Tetraborate Decaydrate (twice as many water molecules attached) so the dosing will be different because of the addtional water molecules attached makes it weigh more for the same amount of borates added.

Here are the links to the Proteam Supreme dosing chart and pH control chart (for adding acid)
http://www.proteampoolcare.com/prod_pdf/Supreme_DoseChart.pdf
http://www.proteampoolcare.com/prod_pdf/Supreme_pH%20Chart.pdf

For a 10000 gal pool Proteam is supposed to be dosed at 27 pounds to reach 50 ppm and according to BleachCalc 20 mule team is supposed to be dosed at 10 pounds, 3.5 ounces (163.5 oz) to reach 50 ppm.
Michael, does this sound right to you? That would make borax more concentrated a supplier of borates but I would think you would need more borax weight wise because of the 10 water molecules attached vs. 5 for Supreme.

[mwsmith2]

Well, I didn't create the formula it uses, that's for sure. It was a huge post on the old forum that outlined the chemistry behind it. There was a discussion about decahydrate vs pentahydrate in there. I wish I would have saved it, but I didn't. I do believe I have the math about here somewhere if I can dig it up.


Michael

[waterbear]

Well, I didn't create the formula it uses, that's for sure. It was a huge post on the old forum that outlined the chemistry behind it. There was a discussion about decahydrate vs pentahydrate in there. I wish I would have saved it, but I didn't. I do believe I have the math about here somewhere if I can dig it up.


Michael
probaly the easiest way to check it is to use bleachcalc to get a certain ppm increase and then test with the strips to see if it is in the ballpark.

[Henry3]

According to the "Alex" printout, you need to add 1# Sodium Bisulphate for each 2# Borax. 1 Qt. Muriatic acid = 2.5 # Sodium Bisulphate.
Henry

[frankcav]

This seems like a good idea to raise the borate level to the 50 ppm level and creating an algistatic state. I found a patent from 1986 claiming borates are also algicidal: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4594091.pdf
(does such reading belong in "The China Shop"?)

One last thing 20 mule team borax comes in 76 oz. boxes, coming to 4.75 lbs., so if you overshoot the dose is there any harm in putting in too many borates?

[waterbear]

According to the "Alex" printout, you need to add 1# Sodium Bisulphate for each 2# Borax. 1 Qt. Muriatic acid = 2.5 # Sodium Bisulphate.
Henry
According to Proteam's literature on Supreme you need 3/4 lb (12 oz by weight) of sodium bisulfate or 10 oz by volume of muriatic acid for each pound of Supreme (Sodium Tetraborate Pentahydrate)