TA, Borax and Alkalinity test

[Water_man]

I wonder what Taylor's TA test actually measures. It can't be the actual amount of the bicarbonate anion, because Taylor Tech warns that you have to account for the "alkalinity" contribution of CYA.
Therefore, the TA must be related somehow to the buffering capacity of the dissolved species which serve as buffers.
I read here and in the sister site that Borax actually serves as a buffer too. Does it also contribute to the measured TA?

[waterbear]

Not appreciably and it's contibution to the TA can be ignored. As far as the CYA contribution to TA is is small enough at normal CYA levels of 30-50 ppm that it can be ignored also. Itis only when the CYA levels are high does the CYA adjustment become more important and is only really an issue when using an acidic stabilized chlorine source like trichor, which requires a much higher TA for ph stability. If you are using unstabilized chlorine it is a non issue. The borax buffer works differently than the bicarbonate buffer. Instead of causing the pH to rise toward 8.2 it causes the pH to fall so the two in conjucntion have an effect of helping stabilize the pH for a longer period of time.

[Water_man]

Not appreciably and it's contibution to the TA can be ignored. As far as the CYA contribution to TA is is small enough at normal CYA levels of 30-50 ppm that it can be ignored also. Itis only when the CYA levels are high does the CYA adjustment become more important and is only really an issue when using an acidic stabilized chlorine source like trichor, which requires a much higher TA for ph stability. If you are using unstabilized chlorine it is a non issue. The borax buffer works differently than the bicarbonate buffer. Instead of causing the pH to rise toward 8.2 it causes the pH to fall so the two in conjucntion have an effect of helping stabilize the pH for a longer period of time.

Cool. I haven't had a need to use Borax yet, and once I adjusted my pH from the initial 7.9 at opening, steady she goes on 7.5. I was getting prepared for a pH change, because this happened last seasons when I used stabilized chlorine, which I am not using any more, after being re-educated by this forum. To the best of my recollection the pH used to shift downwards, so I was anticipating the need to add Borax.
You were absolutely right saying "don't worry about problems before they come up and just enjoy the water."
The water is indeed perfectly sweet. The only thing I'm worried about is if my daily consumption of FC is "normal", roughly 1 - 2 ppm/day, see this post.
If it is indeed normal, then the downside is apparently high maintenance costs because of the almost daily addition of bleach. The upside is that this is the 15th day after opening and CC <0.5 which means two weeks have passed and I didn't need to shock.
As for FC consumption: I saw previous posts by chem geek speculating that polyquat may consume FC and the product of the chlorine - PQ reaction is not detected as CC. This makes sense because PQ contains nitrogen and the product may not be a chloramine. I wonder of CG or others have a final answer about PQ's FC consumption.