what changes borate levels in a pool?

[juzzie]

Is borates simmilar to CYA in terms of how levels drop / increase?

eg. do you need to drain if borate levels get too high?

What are the ill effects of too high borate level say 70ppm ???

Does anything "consume" borates to make the level drop?

The reason I ask is that CYA was such a problem for me....

If the borate level is perfect and you are continually adding borax to the water to adjust pH up will that lead to the same or simmilar sort of problems as continually adding and therefore raising CYA does?

 

[dmanb2b]

Same as CYA. 70 ppm is not overly harmful to humans but becomes more harful for animals. If you are constantly adding Borax to adjust PH up, there is something off with your chemistry or you are possibly using Trichlor to chlorinate. If so, in time you will need to reduce CYA levels which will also reduce your borate level.

 

[juzzie]

Nothing off with my levels, just that pH was a bit low at 7.2 everything else is spot on.

More curious than anything else...

My CYA is at 40 and I will only be using liquid chlorine from now on. I've got enough trichlor pucks / powder etc. in the pool shed to serve purposes of raising CYA if I need to....

No more pool shops for me!

What I am really keen on is understanding the maths behind the pool calculator and some of chem geeks calculations but I am not too good with non metric calculations!!!

 

[dmanb2b]

If the borate level is perfect and you are continually adding borax to the water to adjust pH up will that lead to the same or simmilar sort of problems as continually adding and therefore raising CYA does?

Sorry about that...I misread your question above, thinking your PH is continually climbing. If not, the amount of borax added to adjust PH during the course of a year is negligable at best. The borate strips I believe are at best +/-10 ppm accuracy anyhow.

 

[Swampwoman]

Juzzie, just soyou know, while some don't like the app because it doesn't remember your setup, there is an iPhone/iPad app based on the pool calculator that does convert to metric. If you have an iPad or iPhone, you can check it out in the app store.

 

[Smykowski]

What I am really keen on is understanding the maths behind the pool calculator and some of chem geeks calculations but I am not too good with non metric calculations!!!

Upper right hand corner of the pool calculator (web version) there's a drop down menu: you can set it to US, metric, or imperial.

Sent from my Exhibit II using Tapatalk.

 

[juzzie]

Thanks guys, I have been using the pool calculator in metric and it works fantastic!

Just curious about some of the calculations that's all (I was one of those kids who had to pull things apart just to see how they work!!!)