Woooooo Borates

[poolvibe]

Added Borates to the pool yesterday:

Pre Borate:

FC 3.0
TC 3.0
PH 7.6
TA 80
TH 120
CYA 50
BOR 0

Pool is 26000 gallons, Added 19 Boxes 76oz Mule Team Borax (Wally world guy gave me an interesting look) Added 6 Gallons MA, checked ph an hour later still 8.2, added another gallon, no change, added another gallon late last night. Pool is still at 8.0. This is gonna take at least 2-3 more gallons of MA? Where did I go wrong? I thought the 6 gallons of MA was a tad bit more than the pool calc said?

Loving these discussions....

 

[zea3]

Make sure your MA is full strength, around 31%. There is 14% MA sold as well.

 

[poolvibe]

Makes sense. No wonder it always takes so much more than my test kit says... Must be the 14% stuff. I buy it at Home Depot...

 

[frogabog]

Look up the MSDS for the product. The only muriatic acid sold at the big box stores in our area is <25%. The bottle label does not say this but the MSDS did.

 

[poolvibe]

It says "14.7%" right on the box... Duh... guess I'll have to check the local pool store out...

 

[frogabog]

lol well hey, at least you can use the calculator. There's a 28% choice listed, it should give you fairly accurate dosing. At <25% it's a math person's game adjusting what the calculator tells us to add.

Me... English/Literature

H... Math

I read the instructions, he does the calculations thank you very much!

 

[poolvibe]

Found some 29% at the local pool store...

Latest numbers...


FC 5.0
TC 5.0
PH 7.2
TA 60
CYA 50
CH 130


Now on to tackling the calcium scaling. Gonna ride the 7.0 train for a while... Sequestering agent or no?

F

 

[RobbieH]

If they would have had it, I would have gotten 36 boxes of Borax at one store. Even splitting it up into two stores was still pretty funny. They asked me if I owned a dry cleaners.

 

[JasonLion]

Adding sequestrant usually helps remove calcium scale, though it can still go very slowly anyway.

 

[poolvibe]

Any suggestions on what to use... United chem, leslies.. Jacks....?..

 

[JasonLion]

ProTeam's Metal Magic and Jack's Magic the Pink Stuff (regular), the Blue Stuff (fresh plaster), and the Purple Stuff (SWG) are some of the top sequestrants. You can also find many other brands with similar products, some of which are noticeably less expensive. Sequestrants based on HEDP, phosphonic acid, or phosphonic acid derivatives are the most effective.

 

[FastCougar]

FYI, most paint sections in the big box hardware stores (Lowes, Home Depot, Southern States, etc.) are now selling "Safer Muriatic Acid" from a company called Klean-Strip Green ... according to the MSDS (PDF File link) , it has "<25.0 %" concentration of MA ... no idea how that translates into calculations, but I opted to buy a 4 pack case of Crown brand MA that is the 31.45%

 

[chem geek]

There's really nothing wrong with using the 15% Muriatic Acid if the price is reasonable (i.e. about half that of the 31.45% Muriatic Acid). The main advantage with the lower concentration is that it fumes a lot less.

 

[frogabog]

But it's "<25%"

Doesn't translate w/pool calc very well. Some of us suck at math yano...

(realizes people have lives and adding <25% to pool calculator might not happen any time soon)

 

[poolvibe]

I hate having to store so much so I was happy to find the 29% stuff in town....

Adding sequestrant usually helps remove calcium scale, though it can still go very slowly anyway.

You mean the scale will dissolve anyways? Or the scale will take a long time to dissolve even with the sequestering agent?

 

[les_garten]

Everything below is in error, my mistake!

Thought I would just post this here, it should work.

So your options of MA are 25% and 31%.

The calculator says you need 339 oz of 31%

You see that there is a 6% difference in acid levels between what is on hand and what the calculator calls for.

In this case, you would take 339 oz x 1.06 = 359 oz needed of the 25% to meet the same requirements of the 31%.

If you have 14% acid on hand, you would multiply x 1.17. Because there is a 17% difference between 14% and 31%.

 

[FastCougar]

I just wanted to chime in and praise the borates in my pool. Prior to adding borates, my PH was drifting upward daily! So, after having the pool up and running for 2 weeks, I added borates. That was almost 3 weeks ago now and my PH has been rock solid! The only adjustment I have had to make is to aerate after heavy rains lowered my PH from 7.5 to 7.2. Occasional top offs with tap water have raised the TA, but I have lowered it to 80 with the addition of a little MA and aerating. Pool is super stable now!

 

[JasonLion]

Um, to convert from a quantity for 31% acid to a quantity for 25% acid you need to multiply by 31/25 or 1.24.

It takes a long time for scale to dissolve under the best of circumstances, and even then it doesn't always dissolve.

 

[les_garten]

Um, to convert from a quantity for 31% acid to a quantity for 25% acid you need to multiply by 31/25 or 1.24.

It takes a long time for scale to dissolve under the best of circumstances, and even then it doesn't always dissolve.

You're correct, my mistake.

Too late for Math class obviously!

I'll edit my post pointing out the error.