PH Plus vs. Borax Price & Ingredients

[Watermom]

The procedure for lowering alk is described here: Lowering Alkalinity Step-by-Step


Also, please read the link in my signature below about using muriatic acid safely.

How high is your alk, by the way?

[moblaine]

Watermom, it was 130 ppm as of this past weekend, having risen from 100 on June 2 and 120 on June 5. I think it went up from using powder shocking product (cal hypo?) a couple of times. Can't recall if bleach affects it or not (I've read my manual from Taylor test kit a few times and lots of different posts on here so have digested lots of information but didn't retain lots either, lol).

[waterbear]

TA will fluctuate a bit with pH so if your pH has risen your TA might read higher. Also if you are testing with a Taylor kit the precision is 1 drop so if youare using a 25 ml water sample the reading of 130 ppm this past weekend and the reading of 120 on June 5th are really the same.
The only thing that will cause TA to rise when you add it are sources of bicarbonate (baking soda, alkalinity increaser) or carbonate (pH up, soda ash, washing soda). Borax will cause a slight TA rise because it causes pH to rise and when pH rises some of the carbonic acid (carbon dioxide dissolved in your water) becomes bicarbonate ion.
NO source of chlorine will cause TA to rise (but trichlor and dichlor can cause it to drop because they are acidic and adding acid lowers TA.)