question about BBB

I've been reading these forums for awhile and have a question about the borax. It says add so much to get your PH up, then so much acid to bring it back down...all leading to the borates at 50 ppm. If I add just a little bit of borax all the time to keep my PH at normal, will I still have to add acid? Does the borax/borates go away like chlorine or will it stay in the water?
I've been putting borax in my pool all summer to bring PH up, but never got so high I needed to use acid. I don't have a borate test kit yet so don't know what the level is.
I really want the "sparkly" water everyone talks about using the BBB method, just wondering if I could "slowly" get there with borax and not need the acid.

Thanks for any input!

You can certainly go at it that way, but unless you are having a real problem with your pH going too low, it may take a long time.

Also, if you have a sand filter (with multi-gallon backwashes) or a small pool with many 'splashy' swimmers, you may reach a point where you lose borax about as fast as you add it.

If you don't want to add borax and acid to get to 50 ppm borate in your pool there are commercial products such as Proteam Supreme Plus or Bioguard Optimizer Plus(a mixture of borax and boric acid) that are pH neutral and don't require the acid addition but they are a LOT more expen$ive! The choice is yours. Realize that borax is used for two distinct things:

1) To raise pH without raising total alkalinity much. Very little borax is needed to achieve this so you will not get the algaestatic and pH buffer benefits.

2) As an algaestat and pH buffer by adding 50 ppm. Because borax is alkaline this will cause the pH to go very high so the addition of acid is necessary to keep the pH the same. As an alternative you can just add boric acid (more expensive) but this will lower pH somewhat or use one of the proprietary products (a lot more expensive).

Hope this clears things up for you.

We've had lots of great reports on the effect of borates on algae prevention and water clarity, but you don't actually need them. They make another line of defense against problems and can be the solution when nothing else seems to work to keep your pool's clarity stable. Also if you struggle with clarity and recurring algae, borates may well be your salvation.

But it's completely possible to have a clear, clean pool with crystal water that's stable.without borates and without going crazy. You just have to follow the B-B-B methods. I don't use the borate method because I'm able to keep my pool clear and stable without much work, and I'm happy enough with the feel of the water.

If you are new to the B-B-B method, you may want to keep it simple at first and see if you can keep it nicely without borates and without too much work. You can always raise the borate level to 50ppm whenver you want. Borate test strips are fairly readily available--"better" pool stores usually have them. Or you can get a drop test for them. There's also, I believe, a way you can jury-rig some other tests to give you a borate result. I think Evan is up on that, but he can tell you better than I can.

I guess I'm saying that borates at 50ppm are a fine thing but you shouldn't worry too much unless you are having problems.

Carl