Hi Bill;

Waterbear, one of the most experienced posters here, took the time to write up a detailed alternative approach to using borax for you. However, his post included a couple of points of chemistry I'm not sure about, and more significantly, an operational recommendation that I've avoided in the past.

It sounds like you've handled muriatic acid enough to know about the fumes -- they are not nice, and can be both rather dangerous and quite frightening to pool owners. Anything that increases the exposure of the acid to the air -- such as pouring the acid into a measuring container -- dramatically increases the quantity of HCl gas (the fumes are actually the acid, itself, which is otherwise dissolved in water) present in the atmosphere. For this reason, it's been my policy, and one I've encouraged my moderators to follow as well, to avoid ANY instructions that required pool owners to attempt to measure acid quantities exactly, since this normally means pouring into a measuring cup.

The moderators and I have discussed this, but I think we need to have a discussion among the larger group of contributors to the site, a group in which Waterbear is certainly a leader, and come to a consensus we can operate by for the safety and comfort of PoolForum uses generally. So, I moved Waterbear's post to the China Shop, since the follow-up discussion is likely to get rather detailed, and to NOT be focused on your particular issues.

You can read Waterbear's post here:
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?14387
and my guide to applying muriatic is here:
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?13111
Hope all works well for you.