How to add Borax

[smallpooldad]

Planning to add Borax to my non-SWG 9000 gal plaster pool as ph rises. I hope the following is correct. 540 oz or 7.10 Boxes of 76 oz 20 Mules team and 9 quarts of acid. Do these numbers look good to get the pool to 50 ppm.

Plan is to add one box a day through the skimmer then add 41 oz of muriatic acid, per day, to pool to neutralize alkalinity increase. Questions, how many cups of borax can be added at one time to the skimmer; and how long should one wait before adding more? How much muriatic acid should be added at any one time and how often through the day. Or can I put in the entire amount at one time, 540 oz borax and 9 quarts acid letting the pool cleaner run for 48 hours?

Final question, how much will the TDS rise?

Looking forward to your replies.


Aloha

[RavenNS]

I just have a comment regarding the thread title " how to add borax"...

I have just been sprinkling it all over the surface area of the pool, becuase generally that's how PH+ is done...

(Am I not doing that correctly?) Is smallpooldad correct in thinking that it should be added through the skimmer (instead)?:confused:

[duraleigh]

SPD,

What are you trying to accomplish? I don't understand your goal.

[chem geek]

Dave,

I assume smallpooldad is trying to raise his Borates to 50 ppm similar to what Evan did in The Great Tetraborate Experiment (http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=4712) in The China Shop. This would help stabilize pH by acting as an additional buffer (in addition to the carbonate buffer) and it will help reduce chlorine consumption by preventing algae growth. It will also give a nice sparkle to the water and cure cancer (well, OK, maybe not the latter, but if you see Evan's posts, you'd swear that this was the greatest thing since sliced bread -- and perhaps it is!).

smallpooldad,

Yes, your numbers are essentially correct. You need to add 530 ounces (33.1 pounds or 7.0 boxes) of Borax to get to 50 ppm. One box will require the addition of 38.3 ounces of 31.45% Muriatic Acid to restore the pH and TA (actually, the TA will increase by 0.9 even after adding the acid since the Borates contribute slightly to the TA measurement -- technically, they contribute more to pH buffering than is measured by TA).

If you did not add the acid, then one box would raise your pool's pH from 7.5 to 8.43 assuming an initial TA of 100 (and CYA of 30). This rise in pH is similar to what would happen if you were shocking your pool to add 21 ppm of chlorine (6% bleach). It's a bit high of a rise in pH and might lead to cloudiness so if I were you I would add acid when about half of the Borax has dissolved and then add the other half when the rest of it dissolves. That way, your pH would only rise to a peak of 8.03 which is quite reasonable. You can add the acid near a return since that should mix it well and I don't think the Borax will dissolve so quickly in the skimmer as to cause the return output to be too basic (you don't want to mix the Borax and acid together directly as that will probably generate lots of heat, but mixing them in the large pool water volume should be fine).

After adding all of the Borax and acid to get back to a 7.5 pH, your TA will rise from 100 to 106.1 while your TDS will increase by 416.8, but remember that most of this is neutral boric acid ( B(OH)3 ) that will not show up in conductivity measurements for TDS so you will likely only measure a rise of about 110 for TDS which is sodium from the sodium tetraborate (Borax) and chloride from the hydrogen chloride (Muriatic Acid).

Richard

[chem geek]

P.S. to smallpooldad,

If you are adding the Borates to get more buffering because the pH rises over time, then you will also want to lower the TA to reduce the amount of carbonate so you reduce the amount of carbon dioxide outgassing. If you go really low in TA (say, down to 60), then you will want to keep your pH up on the higher side around (above 7.5) or else increase your calcium hardness. Otherwise, you could get into a corrosive situation if your pH were to drop for some reason (by having the TA low, you will already be a bit on the corrosive side, but not enough to worry about).

I thought that your pH rise was cut back significantly from your lowering your TA already. Did the problem reoccur or did you just want some more pH buffering without having to increase the amount of acid you need to add? If you add Borates without lowering the TA, then you will reduce the rate of pH rise and the frequency of your adding acid, but the total amount of acid you add over time will still be the same.

P.S. to Dave,

smallpooldad had earlier tried lowering TA to reduce carbon dioxide outgassing (see this thread (http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=4487&p=28576) for more details) and I thought this was successful, but we'll see what he has to say.

[smallpooldad]

Chem Geek,

Thank you for the reply you assume correctly. Yes I want the pool to look like a sparkling glass of Perrier just like the ad and not to fuss too much with rising pH. Once this is accomplished does anyone know if I can get a really cute model to go with my pool at Wal-Mart? And are mini-bikinis on sale? And yes the ph still rises but not as fast. Wow, do you have a good memory. Do not mind adding the same amount of acid as I prefer to do this less frequently and might be lucky if it cuts down on chlorine use; although I am aware that might not happen. The TA never seems to want to drop below 80 adjusted for CyA, any suggestions here.

A question, how much borax can I put through the skimmer, at one time and how long should I wait before adding more, assuming a 3/4 hp pump and a 300 lb sand filter, 15 feet from the pool, with 4 outlet jets?

Aloha

[chem geek]

You had tap water TA of 60 (I looked up your older posts -- my memory is not that good) so it would be hard to get below that if you are refilling your water periodically. On the other hand, your rains probably have low TA. At any rate, Ben's Lowering Your Alkalinity procedure (http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=191) is the only sure-fire way to get your TA lowered. By the way, when you quote TA, please don't adjust for CYA. Instead report TA (as measured by the test kit) and CYA separately. That avoids confusion.

As for where to add the Borax and how much to add how quickly, that's a question for Evan (waterbear) or others who have used Borax to answer as I have no experience with it so don't know how quickly it dissolves.

Richard

[smallpooldad]

Started this evening by adding one box of the 20 Mules, of the seven boxes I plan on adding over the next 7 days; or quicker if I can. Then added 39 oz. of acid 20 minutes later. Poured the mules box around the perimeter of the 9000 gal pool. After 30 minutes the pH held at 7.4, does this validate the instructions or seem odd?

Hope I did this correctly.

Figures before addition

pH 7.4
Alk 90 (not CyA adjusted)
Cl 6
CyA 50
Calcium 180
TDS ?

Aloha

[chem geek]

Yup. Since the pH didn't change after doing the combination of one box of Borax and then 39 ounces of acid, this validates what we calculated. That's great news! So you can confidently continue with this pairing and know that you won't be throwing your pH out of whack.

Richard

[smallpooldad]

Chem Geek,

Yes the pool looks great. It is so bright and sparkling that one could go blind looking at it. I will report back as to its pH stability and Chlorine usage.

Added all the Borax, one box at a time, waited 2 hours between each addition. Had to adjust the acid down to 34 oz on the 5th box as pH dropped to 7.2, 6th box added 34 oz, 7th box 39 oz.

pH is now 7.5.

Questions after look at your spreadsheet;

Raised the chlorine to 8, do you think this is too high? Typically it drops 2 ppm in a day, maybe after the borax 1, but will have to wait for time to tell.
What is the optimum CSL level?
The pool is crystal clear but was thinking of raising the calcium to 400 based on your spreadsheet, your opinion would be appreciated. What would be the benefits of doing this.
Noticed in one post that you said there might be a benefit in raising borate to 100 but no other detail as far as I can see. Would it be wise or unwise to do so, or are the benefits minimal versus any downside?

Alk 100 -105 (no CYA adjustment) but was thinking of letting it get down to 90 to slow outgassing.
pH 7.5
Calcium 200
CyA 50
Chlorine 8
TDS ?
Temp 80
Borate 50

Thank you for all the efforts you have put into helping me and others and for the wonderful spreadsheet.

Until I report the results,

Aloha

[waterbear]

I added all my borax and acid in one shot. First I put in the correct amount of acid for one box of borax and then added a box of borax (about 1/2 box at a time) dissoved in a bucket of water. It didn't all dissolve so I just put more pool water in the bucket and stirred with my hand and repeated this until the borax in the bucket was gone. It only took a few minutes. Then I repeated for the other 1/2 box of borax. Then more acid and another box of borax 1/2 box at a time until I had added the calualted amount to bring me to 50 ppm borates. This is in line with the instructions for ProTeam Supreme, btw. Edit: Also, even though I have stopped posting in the thead I started (The Great Tetraborate Experiment) pool is doing incredibly fine...pH stable, chlorine demand WAY down, water sparkling clear!

[chem geek]

Raised the chlorine to 8, do you think this is too high? Typically it drops 2 ppm in a day, maybe after the borax 1, but will have to wait for time to tell.
What is the optimum CSL level?
The pool is crystal clear but was thinking of raising the calcium to 400 based on your spreadsheet, your opinion would be appreciated. What would be the benefits of doing this.
Noticed in one post that you said there might be a benefit in raising borate to 100 but no other detail as far as I can see. Would it be wise or unwise to do so, or are the benefits minimal versus any downside?

You could probably target 4 ppm as your absolute minimum and therefore start with 6 ppm at the start of the day, assuming it still loses 2 ppm per day. It may lose less per day after the Borate settles down and will also lose a little less if you start out with 6 instead of 8. It's really up to you if you want to be on the lower end of Ben's range or the higher end though you will use less chlorine at the lower end. If you think you might miss a daily dose, then 8 ppm is a safer starting point.

If you are worried about the -0.2 CSI index, that is not bad at all and you can just leave things as they are, but if you wanted to you could add more calcium. I think that 300 ppm is plenty for CH since it still gives you plenty of leeway to have the pH higher or lower. It's easy to add calcium, but a pain in the patooty to get rid of it (essentially by dilution). Honestly, don't worry about a CSI variation of anything less than +/- 0.5 (and yes, I know I've got a warning orange at +/-0.3 and a danger red at +/-0.6 but that's really conservative and most people don't see any problem at all until they get to +/-0.75 or even much higher).

As for the 100 ppm Borates level quoted in the Who document as being more effective against more types of algae, I would stick with the 50 ppm for now since that's what is recommended by Proteam and others. Let's see how it goes for you, waterbear (Evan) and others before we go any higher on Borates. I'm just being conservative about this -- I don't see any real downside to the higher Borates level (see the section on Human exposure to Boric Acid in the same Who document at this link (http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc204.htm#PartNumber:8)).

And yes, you can let your TA drop to 90 if you want since that will also help reduce the pH rise. You can also operate at somewhat higher pH, 7.6 (or to 7.7 if you lower your TA to 80). Again, these CSI "0" targets are very conservative targets and you have a lot of leeway before you would get into a scaling or corrosive situation. It's my personal goal to target the "0" for my pool, but I don't worry about it deviating so it's really a long-term "annual" starting point goal more than anything else.

Thanks for keeping us posted on your experience.

Richard

[smallpooldad]

Waterbear and Chem Geek,

Thank you both for your replies and help.

The pool looks great. The water feels good and who needs a bath after swimming. Wished I had known or read how you did it Waterbear, before I took this amount of time to adjust it.

Raised the Calcium to 350, as a pH of 7.5 is preferable due to iron staining problems in Hawaii. Will let the Alkalinity go to 90 (unadjusted for CyA) and will go with Chlorine of 6 at nighttime after a swim, in the future.

One interesting thing is starting to happen. Had some grey/black stain streaks in the plaster, which I have tried to get rid of with both the ascorbic acid method and high chlorine (30 ppm) methods, neither of which worked. Well these stains seem to be slowly dissolving away with a combination of Algaecide 60 and Chlorine (held at 8 at nighttime), the Borax has definitely speeded this process, not sure why.

Aloha for now

[chem geek]

One interesting thing is starting to happen. Had some grey/black stain streaks in the plaster, which I have tried to get rid of with both the ascorbic acid method and high chlorine (30 ppm) methods, neither of which worked. Well these stains seem to be slowly dissolving away with a combination of Algaecide 60 and Chlorine (held at 8 at nighttime), the Borax has definitely speeded this process, not sure why.

It sounds like the grey/black streaks are/were algae. Borax will inhibit as well as kill certain forms of algae so that is probably why it is helping along with the algaecide (polyquat 60%). If the gray/black stain seems powdery, then you may have the infamous mustard/yellow algae that is very hard-to-kill. Since the ascorbic acid didn't get rid of it, it was probably not a metal stain, but the high chlorine of 30 ppm would normally get rid of even mustard/yellow algae unless your CYA was high. Do you recall your CYA level when you were at 30 ppm chlorine? If it was 50 ppm or above, then you would need an even higher chlorine level to kill mustard/yellow algae. A 70 ppm CYA level would require at least 46 ppm FC, for example.

I really want to determine if this stuff was mustard/yellow algae because if the Borax is truly that effective in killing it, then this is yet one more reason for people to use 50 ppm Borax in their pools. Several people battle this mustard/yellow algae every year even with Ben's recommended chlorine levels so if Borax can avoid this battle, then that would be great news.

Richard

[smallpooldad]

Chem Geek,

Thank you for the response.

The CYA was 55, and by accident I got the chlorine at that time to 40 ppm but did not hold it there.

What would be the best course of action now? Take chlorine up to 45 ppm and hold it there for how many days?

Hope this helps.

Aloha

[chem geek]

The CYA was 55, and by accident I got the chlorine at that time to 40 ppm but did not hold it there.

What would be the best course of action now? Take chlorine up to 45 ppm and hold it there for how many days?

Well, assuming that what you have is this yellow/mustard algae, and that's a big assumption, with a CYA of 55 I think holding an FC level of 40 ppm should be enough but it will take a few days or possibly a week to get rid of this stuff. It seems that most people who finally decided to use such high levels of chlorine did start to see a reduction in the algae after a couple of days and then full clearing usually within a week. For those that took longer, I am not sure if it's because they didn't have a high enough chlorine level, but suspect that is the case.

It seems that to get rid of the yellow/mustard algae that the actual disinfecting chlorine level needs to be at least 1.0 ppm which corresponds to around 2 ppm FC if there were no CYA present. The 55 ppm CYA level requires somewhat less than 40 ppm of FC to achieve this 1.0 ppm disinfecting chlorine level.

Given the reduction you are already seeing due to the Borates, I suspect that after final removal of this algae infestation, if that is what it is, you won't see it come back due to the Borates. At least that is the hope. With several users now using Borates, we'll see if any get the mustard/yellow algae bloom next year. We won't really know for sure until enough users, especially those that typically get the mustard/yellow algae, use 50 ppm Borates.

Richard

[smallpooldad]

Chem Geek,

Thank you for the reply. Lots of questions follow.

Firstly something odd is happening. The stains are slowly going away but the usage of Chlorine is going up 2 1/2 ppm loss to 4 ppm now, at a maintenance level of 8 ppm. Could this be due to the fact that the algae is now exposed and chlorine is being used up in the killing process? My concern is that I do not have a borate test kit, do you think that this level as well could be getting used up? I will order on-line this test kit.

I will boost the Chlorine to 40 ppm and hold it there for one week.

Could I use United Chemical's Yellow Treat which contains 88.8% Sodium Bromide, to aid in the destruction of this algae, or is this a bad idea?

I understand that Bromide consumes large quantities of Chlorine but seems to be effective in treating mustard algae. Any idea on how much Chlorine might be used up over the week so I can stock up? And should I maintainance the level back to 40 as it is used up? Is it correct that the filter need to be going 24/7 for the entire process?

What level of nitrates are considered bad for a pool?

Lastly I have Great White 9500 Pool Cleaner that has brushes on it that sweeps the pool is this good enough to do the brushing that is required or would it be better to hand brush with a pole? If so how often, and are the nylon brushes good enough or do I need to get stainless steel brushes?

Looking forward to your reply.

Aloha

[chem geek]

Could I use United Chemical's Yellow Treat which contains 88.8% Sodium Bromide, to aid in the destruction of this algae, or is this a bad idea?

I understand that Bromide consumes large quantities of Chlorine but seems to be effective in treating mustard algae. Any idea on how much Chlorine might be used up over the week so I can stock up? And should I maintainance the level back to 40 as it is used up? Is it correct that the filter need to be going 24/7 for the entire process?

What level of nitrates are considered bad for a pool?

Lastly I have Great White 9500 Pool Cleaner that has brushes on it that sweeps the pool is this good enough to do the brushing that is required or would it be better to hand brush with a pole? If so how often, and are the nylon brushes good enough or do I need to get stainless steel brushes?

I would not use Yellow Treat or anything else other than Chlorine, at least initially. There are other threads in the Algae section that pretty much say everything is useless or certainly no more effective than chlorine except possibly PolyQuat 60% which is mostly for algae prevention and not elimination.

As you point out, Bromide gets activated to Bromine by Chlorine and is generally what is done in spas that use bromine. This is not something you want to do in pools. Once you've got the bromine in your pool, it will be hell to get it out as the chlorine will reactivate it -- so you will end up in a cycle of bromine disinfection, then chlorine reactivating it, with the net result that bromine will be doing some of the work from chlorine, BUT doesn't do as good a job (generally) which is why it takes more bromine to be as effective as chlorine. Bottom line, don't add bromine to your pool in any form (bromide or bromine). Note that Borates refer to Boron which is a completely different element than Bromine -- confusing, eh?

Yes, maintain the level of chlorine at 40 ppm as it gets used up. If your pool is exposed to strong sunlight, then it could use up to half the chlorine during the day so that would be 20 ppm, but the key to see if this is working is to see if it gets used up at night and if the algae appears to diminish. You could just get enough chlorine for a few days (60 ppm worth) and then see how your usage goes.

No idea on what level of nitrates is bad. I know that it's food for algae, but don't know what level starts to trigger significant algae. Perhaps someone else knows that.

Unless you have black algae, you shouldn't need anything more than nylon brushes. Perhaps before you get started too much on this, you should make sure you don't have black algae. Black algae will be deeply embedded into the plaster surface while mustard/yellow algae will be more like a powder. If you have black algae, then the high chlorine level is less important that continually brushing and knocking off the exposed heads of the algae. Some people scrape the black algae with a Tri-Chlor tablet since this is both acidic and high chlorine (though bound to CYA so I somewhat question that) that black algae does not like. I think your overall high chlorine level plus scraping should be fine, even if this is black algae.

Since you seem fairly certain that whatever you have is algae, you should probably post in the Algae section and have Marie comment since she is the expert in that area. You can link to your post in this thread as a reference. She can probably refer you to pictures or ask you questions to identify exactly what it is that you have and how to treat it.

Richard

[smallpooldad]

Chem Geek,

Once again thank you. I will do as you suggest and report back the results.

Aloha

[waterbear]

I

No idea on what level of nitrates is bad. I know that it's food for algae, but don't know what level starts to trigger significant algae. Perhaps someone else knows that.


Richard

From what I have been able to find out it seems to be between 10-25 ppm but I don't know if that is as nitrate nitrogen or nitrate ion which is approx. 4.4 times higher than the nitrate nitrogen reading. I suspect it is the nitrate nitrogen reading since this is the way it is most commenly expressed in water quality measurements. The EPA has set the safe limit of nitrates in drinking water at 10 ppm nitrate nitrogen (44 ppm nitrate ion). Some sources state that superchlorination (well above breakpoint, in ther neightborhood of 50 ppm and often much higher) often effectively deals with high levels of nitrates and nitrites in the water. Others say that there is no way to reduce high nitrate levels besides a drain and refill with low nitrate water.
When nitrates are present in the water nitrites are often present too and the effect of both are cumulative in terms of algae growth. Nitrites are tested more rarely than nitrates in pools.