Brentr said:
I too just switched to borates (Team Mule 20)this past weekend and my pH went up from 7.5 to 7.8 . I adjusted it back to 7.5 by adding muriatic acid. No swimming as it is too cold and I have not noticed any water color change however the pool has been kept up to TFP specs. 48 hrs later the pH drifted back up to 7.8 so I again adjusted it back to 7.5 . I am running the SWG and the FC is about 8. Would this cause the pH to drift upwards?? Borates test out at 50
Hi Brent,
Not the chlorine, but the SWG could be a contributing factor. I just noticed you have the same over-sized chlorinator that I have. The TCELL-15 is promoted for pools <= 40K gallons; it's almost too much cell for your pool (mine, too) and so you should consider setting the percentage lower. It doesn't need to work that hard in the winter to sustain sufficient chlorine, especially with no one swimming right now.
If you added borax (not boric acid) to your pool the pH rise is quite expected. Did you happen to read through the thread discussing how to apply it? It must be incredibly basic to require the acid that is called for in
that procedure. So, the fact that your pH is continuing to rise 48 hrs later isn't surprising. If you have a water feature running along with the pump, disable it for a few days. I doubt that you'll have to purposefully aerate to increase pH, but don't press your luck by adding too much acid at one time. At 50 ppm, you're done adding borax.
I understand that the administrators of this forum put $1000 each into a cash fund each year and award the proceeds to anyone who adds borax to their pool and successfully resists coming on the forum to announce that their pool is “sparkling.†To my knowledge, they’ve never had to pay out. Good luck in the contest.
Greg