Quote Originally Posted by ubalr1
Thanks Waste. Not sure I understand this "honest folks who do their own testing get numbers that end with "0"." We do have our own tester that we use on a sporadic basis. Our numbers are in the ballpark with the pool store. We just added 12lbs of sodium hydrogen carbonate (aka., soda ash, baking soda, sodium bicarbonate). We'll see what that does. The water in my area is very hard (19-20 grains, ?ppm). So, I am thinking of switching the auto-fill supply from hard water to soft water. I should have done it summer before last when we drained the pool. Still considering (researching) the whole liquid bleach approach.
Ubalr1, I believe that every new poster deserves a quick response, even if I can't provide the 'full' answer. There are folks here who understand chemistry MUCH better than I. What I know has been (mostly) gathered from reading a bunch of threads here, so I'm passing on second hand info to you.
As for the 'results ending in '0' ', pool store testers seem to have a 'built in' 'sell chems' sub program in them, when I do a drop based test (like Ben's kit or the Taylor 2005 kit) I get results that are in increments of 10 - a pool store number that doesn't end in "0" is an indication of the 'selling software' kicking in. (this does not apply to cl or pH)
While we're at it soda ash (a/k/a sodium carbonate/ soda ash is different from sodium bicarbonate (a/k/a sodium hydrogen carbonate) The Borax is a different way of raising the pH, but it doesn't affect the total alkalinity like soda ash does.
I hope that this is at least slightly helpful, I'm thinking that a few of the folks who know more about chemistry will post when they see it.