I'll let Pooldoc handle the non-zero Br readings, except to say that if you're using an OTO block, the chlorine and bromine scales are side by side, so if you get a reading for Cl, you'll get one for Br too, even though there's no bromine in the pool. If that's the case, then ignore it. However, if your test system runs a separate test for bromine, and you're getting a level, then that's a question for Ben to handle. I'll ask him to take a look into this thread and see what he thinks.
The borax is used to raise your pH without having much of an effect on your total alk. The baking soda is used to raise your total alkalinity, which is in part your pH buffer. There are those who can (and will, if you want) go into the exact chemistry as deeply as you want to go, but the extremely oversimplified version is that the borax is changing the pH of your water, and the baking soda works on the buffering system for the pH. Does that help?
At any rate, how is the water looking now? To address the low chlorine issue, I would test for chlorine tonight after the sun goes off the pool, and then test it again in the morning before the sun hits the pool, and compare the two numbers. If you've lost more than 1 ppm of chlorine in that time, then you have something in the pool that is consuming it, so the pool needs to be shocked and held at shock level until whatever that is, is dead. If you haven't lost any chlorine overnight, then you can pretty much attribute your chlorine loss to sunlight, and increasing the CYA should help.
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