I still need to score 5 more boxes of borax after cleaning out 2 different Walmarts 3 times, and have 8 gallons of MA on hand. First, following the sticky for adding the borax and acid, I need to adjust my TA to between 70-80. It is currently about 90 to 100, and my pH is 7.5. I understand the procedure to lower TA is to add acid to drop the pH to 7.0-7.2, then aerate to bring the pH back up and lower TA. So how many iterations of this process will it take to drop my TA by about 20, and how long does the aeration process take for each iteration? I know this will be dependent on how I aerate, but are we talking hours or days typically?
What is the risk/problem if the TA is higher than 70-80 when adding the borax and acid? My TA tends to slowly drop during the season, I think because of adding new water that has low TA. Would I be OK to add the borax and acid now, and let the TA drop on its own over time to the 70-80 range?
Also, after reading probably a couple hundred posts on the borate topic today, I ran across at least a couple where people mentioned having to add acid every couple days to maintain pH after even switching to borates. I'm confused about this because I thought one of the main advantages of borates was to buffer pH. Since initially balancing my pool after opening a couple months ago, I have not had to adjust it at all...it started about 7.2, and knowing that it tends to increase, I let it do that and it has only now gotten up to about 7.5. I don't want to make a change to my pool that will increase how often I need to add chemicals. I'm primarily hoping for the benefit of decreased risk of algae bloom by adding borates. (I've already had one last week after a bad storm blew all kinds of debris into the pool and it was a couple days before I could clean it out, and I didn't crank up the SWG in the meantime.) Is it just an odd situation that would require someone to still have to add acid frequently after going borate?
What is the risk/problem if the TA is higher than 70-80 when adding the borax and acid? My TA tends to slowly drop during the season, I think because of adding new water that has low TA. Would I be OK to add the borax and acid now, and let the TA drop on its own over time to the 70-80 range?
Also, after reading probably a couple hundred posts on the borate topic today, I ran across at least a couple where people mentioned having to add acid every couple days to maintain pH after even switching to borates. I'm confused about this because I thought one of the main advantages of borates was to buffer pH. Since initially balancing my pool after opening a couple months ago, I have not had to adjust it at all...it started about 7.2, and knowing that it tends to increase, I let it do that and it has only now gotten up to about 7.5. I don't want to make a change to my pool that will increase how often I need to add chemicals. I'm primarily hoping for the benefit of decreased risk of algae bloom by adding borates. (I've already had one last week after a bad storm blew all kinds of debris into the pool and it was a couple days before I could clean it out, and I didn't crank up the SWG in the meantime.) Is it just an odd situation that would require someone to still have to add acid frequently after going borate?