So you want to add borates to your pool--Why and How

[Guest]

Now up to 50 ppm and finally vacuumed. Delightful.
I have one problem with the LaMotte strips though. Mine came with the start color on the dry pad at 15ppm, not the 0 ppm color.

Dip a strip in some tap water and I think you will find the WET pad reads at the 0 ppm color! If it doesn't your strips are bad.

Also, read the strips in direct sun and not artificial light and remember to let them develop for a full 15 seconds before reading!

 

[amjohn]

Ok, the tap water test did work, they are definitely reading 0ppm when wet with tap water, and now they are reading the 50 ppm when testing the pool water. The two tests that read 80ppm may have been because the water was so warm when I did them (I got it up to 94 degrees accidentally) or just because I have a hard time with strips- "is that orangey-tan or tannish-orange?" Anyways, I am definitely at 50ppm, or maybe a tad over, and the strips appear to be good. Thank you for the suggestion.

 

[bob_in_VA]

... I am definitely at 50ppm, or maybe a tad over, and the strips appear to be good. Thank you for the suggestion.

:?: I've been very curious if there are any major problems with having a borates level above 50ppm, and if so, by how much above 50ppm would it need to be to experience any problems? I know this is not rocket science, but I also don't want to find out after its too late if there's any major reasons to stay at or below 50ppm.

I never worried about testing the borates last year since I started out with a brand new pool and added exactly the amount of 20 Mule Team and MA necessary to get borates to 50ppm and everything else perfectly balanced for a SWG. It was a flawless, trouble free summer with crystal clear water and a PH that stayed locked at 7.7 from June until October. Then, I used my SWG to raise FC up to around 12ppm, plugged the return, installed a stainless cover plate on the skimmer and covered the pool. After taking my winter cover off in late April to an absolutely spotless pool, I would estimate that the water level in the pool dropped about 10" from displacement and/or evaporation, so I had to add back about 20% of my pools water. It took less than one day to get everything right back where it should be, but I didn't want to just wing it on the borates, so I ordered the LaMotte test strips a few weeks ago. I know the borates level must be slightly low since I had to add fresh water and salt to get back up to last years reading of 3500ppm, but I am having a hard time discerning between the 30 and the 50 on these test strips, so I figured I'd ask here before just assuming that it will be OK to end up with a borates level higher than 50ppm and throwing in a few boxes of 20 Mule Team and the MA.

 

[JasonLion]

Raising borates by a little too much isn't a problem. There isn't any value in going higher, but if you accidentally get up to 60, or 70, or even 80 I would not expect any problems because of it.

 

[Wolfmarsh]

I did this process in my pool last week, and i have to say, maybe its purely in my mind, but my water has never looked better.

I have never seen my water this clear, and my wife even said so without me prompting her, which is good proof I am not just psyching myself out.

Fantastic!

 

[Guest]

:?: I've been very curious if there are any major problems with having a borates level above 50ppm, and if so, by how much above 50ppm would it need to be to experience any problems?

Not a problem. In fact, the recommended borate level for biguanide pools is 80 ppm!




This sticky was originally meant as a how to and it's now 6 pages long. I am going to lock it. If you have any questions about borates please start your own thread so the question can get answered in the forum!
Thanks!

 

[vnew]

I've been reading that adding borates reduces the amount of pump time needed, but I'm not sure by how much. I understand that 1 turn / day is usually recommended for a pool without borates, so how many turns per day are recommended with them?

Thanks,
Vonn

(Don't actually have a pool, just doing some research for a friend.)

 

[JasonLion]

vnew, welcome to TFP!

There isn't any consistent behavior. Often you can reduce the pump run time a bit after adding borates, but it varies from pool to pool. The best thing to do is to experiment with a shorter pump run time and see how the water looks after a week, and then make further adjustments from there based on how things go.

 

[girlgeekFL]

I've been meaning to come back to this post and let you know the results of our attempt to add borates to our pool but we have been so busy...well....swimming in our awesome pool!! We followed the instructions in the first post and have had nothing but clear, beautiful water. Prior to adding the borates, we were fighting algae bloom after algae bloom and pouring $$$ into the pool and having very little use. Not any more. We are in the pool several times a day. Borate levels are still right where they should be. We have been able to use minimal chlorine which has been our goal. This was absolutely the best thing we have done for this pool since we bought this house last year. Thank you sooooo much for the detailed instructions. Not only was it easy, but we had incredible results and I would highly recommend this to others!!!

 

[no-mas]

Thanks for reporting back!

 

[Hal3]

Forget the dumb check-out girl that asked " What do you use that stuff for?" Tell her to clean blood off the floors. :lol:

I told them "They're going to stop making it and the price is about to soar."

 

[chem geek]

Prior to adding the borates, we were fighting algae bloom after algae bloom and pouring $$$ into the pool and having very little use.

Sharon,

Prior to adding the Borates, did you try maintaining at least a minimum Free Chlorine (FC) level relative to the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level according to the Chlorine / CYA Chart? The use of Borates is an optional additional item and is not required to prevent algae growth if proper chlorine levels are maintained relative to CYA. It does help take the edge off of such growth if the chlorine level ever gets to low so can be see similar to other algicides as insurance.

Richard

 

[sonyak]

I just wanted to pop a note in here to say that adding borates to the pool has done amazing things for my chemistry.
We just moved into our house on Oct 31, and I started to maintain our pool. I fought with the chemistry for 6 weeks. My ph was always high, my TA was high. I would add muriatic acid to the water, to get the ph down. It would come down, then I'd aerate the pool to get the TA down, the ph would get out of hand again. I went through a 4 litre jug of acid in a month, which I think is excessive.
Then I added the borates to the pool, and I haven't had to adjust my TA or ph since!
I was going to use the borax/acid method, but ended up finding a ph neutral borate to add.
For those of you who are in Canada, you might want to consider purchasing Capo's Soft Touch Conditioner.
It works the same as the other products mentioned in the thread, but it's made in Hamilton, ON, therefore it's about $15 less per 50 lb container.
This is definitely the best thing I've done for the pool, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is trying to balance their water. It's also helped out with the softness in the water, which is great because we spend a lot of time in the pool in the winter.

 

[PaulR]

I would add muriatic acid to the water, to get the ph down. It would come down, then I'd aerate the pool to get the TA down, the ph would get out of hand again.

Okay, here's how it goes:
- acid by itself lowers pH (you knew that)
- (more) acid + aeration lowers TA
Aeration by itself doesn't lower TA, that's a misconception.

But borates are definitely good news for pH control problems. I use borates in my spa and rarely need to add acid.
--paulr

 

[Freelancer]

Talk about living in the land of plenty (Those of you in the USA), I was going to convert rather a lot of pools (100+)to borax and contacted a supplier here in Spain..

He wanted €100 per kilo..

1 EUR = 1.43USD
$143 for 1Kg
1Kg = 2.2Ib

So $65 for 1Ib of boric acid or Borax, they are the same price.

I told him I wanted 500Kg so he dropped the price to €35 per kilo so now it would cost $50 per kilo or $22.75 per Ib.. That is without shipping costs..

So for a standard 8 x 4 pool here in Spain it would cost me $750 to put 50 PPM of Borax into the pool and leave me 2 kilos for tops ups.. It's a shame Turkey is not part of the EU as they produce so I hear 60% of the worlds exported Borax. No way I am going to pay those prices, I'm now looking for a supplier either from Germany or the UK.. Fingers crossed they are not so greedy.

Does anybody know of a supplier of Lamotte borax test strips who ship to Europe.. I've found a few online shops that sell in the USA but alas none of them will ship to Europe.

 

[polyvue]

Welcome, Freelancer, to TFP~!

From your post I take it that you live in Turkey*. Please enter your location (just the country is fine) in your profile. There may be other members here that live in your region or in greater Europe who can advise you on obtaining borax less expensively than your source in Spain.

And, though I don't know for sure, I believe that TFTestkits.com has borax test strips and can ship anywhere in the world. You can reference this supplier here: http://www.tftestkits.net/index.php

Other members may be able to provide info on other suppliers.

EDIT * I'm an idiot... Freelancer only stated several times in original post that residence was in Spain. Sorry! END-EDIT

 

[Freelancer]

Hi Polyvue,

Thank you for the warm welcome..

Actually I live in Spain. If I lived in Turkey the borax I imagine would be quite cheap.

Have as suggested updated my profile.

I have been following the BBB method for the pools that I look after for quite some time and decided to join and have become a lifetime supporter. Just waiting for Jason to update my sig.

Thanks to this forum I have had little or no problems with my pools, OK one or two have been hammered by huge numbers of bodies but the worse that happened was one or two went slightly milky but I turned them around within 24 hours using just liquid chlorine.. Unfortunately my boss just will not listen to me when I tell him that an automatic chlorinater would solve a lot of problems.. Mind you he does enjoy the fact that out of all the pool maintainers mine are the best and cost him the least.. No anti-algae, flock or tri-clor for my pools.. Now I want to use borax in them, because of my performance using what I have learnt here my boss gives me 100% free reign to do what I want, of course within reason..

I've done so many pools that I have a lot of experience so hopefully will be able to offer advice if I see a situation that I've come across but to be honest the people in here are so knowledgeable I'll probably have little to offer.

 

[Freelancer]

Also just so that you know TFL have this on their site.. (We can not process any International shipments) So I guess I cannot get anything from them.. Ho Hum..

 

[chem geek]

The limitation to U.S. shipments at TFT is for electronic payment. For check or money order, they can ship internationally (that's why the shipping is $10.50), but you should E-mail them to be sure they can do this. They can't ship to Canada since Taylor has an exclusive distributor there, but they may be able to ship some items to Spain. I don't know if LaMotte has any restrictions. Just E-mail and ask (see their Contact Page) or perhaps Dave will respond to this thread or will PM to you.

 

[Freelancer]

The limitation to U.S. shipments at TFT is for electronic payment. For check or money order, they can ship internationally (that's why the shipping is $10.50), but you should E-mail them to be sure they can do this. They can't ship to Canada since Taylor has an exclusive distributor there, but they may be able to ship some items to Spain. I don't know if LaMotte has any restrictions. Just E-mail and ask (see their Contact Page) or perhaps Dave will respond to this thread or will PM to you.

Thanks very much Richard, I have found a distributor in the UK and am currently awaiting their reply to see if they will ship to Spain. If not it will not be a problem as I will get them to ship to family in the UK and then ship out here to Spain.. This way I will not have to go through customs which I would do if I shipped from the USA.