We've decided to try adding borates to the pool this year, and are possibly opening tomorrow. I was going to just buy the Proteam Supreme Plus, as my SIL has been using it for the past couple years and loves it...
But after reading various threads for the last couple hours, it seems I may prefer to just buy boric acid granules from dudadiesel for about $85 for a 55#bucket, which should have about 10 more # than I need for my 18K gallon pool. Compared to almost $145 for the 45# of Supreme Plus from poolgeek, which still appears to be a good price comparatively, for that particular product anyway.
I'm not seeing anywhere *why* Proteam Supreme Plus is that much more expensive... or at least if I did see that, my brain has started to shut down now from all the pages upon pages of threads I've looked thru. Much of which included a whole lot of info on the Borax/muriatic acid method that I def do not want to deal with.
So if anyone could let me know any reasons I'd choose the Supreme Plus over the boric acid granules, I'd greatly appreciate it. Obviously the drastic cost difference is why I *wouldnt* choose the Supreme Plus but I'm really just curious about reasons why I would.
Lastly, once we start opening and after I use my TF100 test kit to check all my levels, would my order of things be to add my bleach and cya (it was very low at closing and there's a lot more water in the pool now due to snow melting), get my pH in range and my TA around 50, and then test for borates and THEN add my boric acid in? Hopefully it doesn't take too long to get shipped here-- but if it does, hopefully I can add it whenever. I am ordering the Lamotte test strips tonight too.
Then I see if I need to SLAM? Or SLAM first, regardless on if I don't have visible algae?
But after reading various threads for the last couple hours, it seems I may prefer to just buy boric acid granules from dudadiesel for about $85 for a 55#bucket, which should have about 10 more # than I need for my 18K gallon pool. Compared to almost $145 for the 45# of Supreme Plus from poolgeek, which still appears to be a good price comparatively, for that particular product anyway.
I'm not seeing anywhere *why* Proteam Supreme Plus is that much more expensive... or at least if I did see that, my brain has started to shut down now from all the pages upon pages of threads I've looked thru. Much of which included a whole lot of info on the Borax/muriatic acid method that I def do not want to deal with.
So if anyone could let me know any reasons I'd choose the Supreme Plus over the boric acid granules, I'd greatly appreciate it. Obviously the drastic cost difference is why I *wouldnt* choose the Supreme Plus but I'm really just curious about reasons why I would.
Lastly, once we start opening and after I use my TF100 test kit to check all my levels, would my order of things be to add my bleach and cya (it was very low at closing and there's a lot more water in the pool now due to snow melting), get my pH in range and my TA around 50, and then test for borates and THEN add my boric acid in? Hopefully it doesn't take too long to get shipped here-- but if it does, hopefully I can add it whenever. I am ordering the Lamotte test strips tonight too.
Then I see if I need to SLAM? Or SLAM first, regardless on if I don't have visible algae?