Newbie about to start installing SWCG

[Safetybob]

Have a little 5 year old girl that loves the pool and has sensitive skin. Once I added a SWG and even more important, once I could actually, acurately test my pool water AND keep it good, most skin problems were gone. A SWG is much more about making it easy for maintain a pool than it is about saving money. Due to job requirements, I elected to go the SWG method as I didn't want to put wife into position to babysitter and play chemist every day.

I hope others will chime in on the advatages of adding a small amount of Borax to good pool water for even more skin and chemical balance advantages........something you might want to consider NEXT year only after proving to yourself you can expertly keep your pool chemistry in check for a full year.

Bob E.

 

[diasurfer]

UWV, it's true that I wasn't exactly clear on how it works. We have a newborn who came home last week from the NICU so my attention has been divided to say the least! Anyway, I performed the overnight test and didn't lose any FC. In fact, I seemed to gain some which calls into question my accuracy but I figure within experimental error I'm good and don't need to get back up to shock level.

Bob, I actually did both the SWCG and the borates (boric acid) so we'll see how it goes.

The thing I'm finding a bit annoying right now is adding the muriatic acid. I might look into an auto feeder system for MA but not this season. I need to see what normal usage is over a season.

thanks for input.

 

[JasonLion]

If you haven't already, get TA down to 60 and the rate of PH increase should slow dramatically.

 

[diasurfer]

My TA is around 80-90 so I still need to lower my TA to 60. I am using about 24-32 oz of Muriatic Acid a week and I'd like to be able to add less. My SWCG is only running about 5% so I suspect I'll have to add more and more MA as I increase the SWCG % as summer approaches. (I've already dropped the number of hours my pump runs.)

On Pool School, it says to lower TA, the method is to lower pH to 7.0 or so, and then aerate to increase pH without changing TA. I don't have an obvious method to aerate right now other than splashing a lot. Will letting the SWCG raise the pH work? It doesn't change TA right? It just seems like strange reasoning that to reduce the amount of MA I have to add to my pool, I need to add a one-time large dose of MA.

BTW I have Borates at ~50 and my salinity is ~3700, a bit on the high side.

 

[jblizzle]

Aerating just speeds up the process of lowering the TA. You can just wait for the pH to rise due to the SWG.

Part of your problem is that you already have the borates in the water which are making it more difficult to lower the pH and TA. It is best to get the TA set prior to adding the borates.