Borax question

docjolly

New member
Jul 3, 2019
3
Auckland, New Zealand
Hi there

First post for me, all the way from little 'ol New Zealand. First thanks for the great site - it has been really helpful while I get to grips with my new hot tub over the last month or so. The dealership I bought the tub from here promote an incredibly blunt approach to managing your tub - I presume because they want more sales by making it look like it takes virtually no care. Their approach could best be described as 'forget about chlorine measurements, and just use s@#tloads of dichlor'. After a couple of weeks of struggling with water that was either cloudy or very strongly 'chloriney,' I found this forum and got m'self educated. Subsequently, I bit the bullet and bought a decent test kit, and found out that the dealer's 'method' had me routinely letting FC fall to zero, and then shocking to an FC of over 20PPM with a CYA that had already risen to >400 (I stopped diluting at that point).

Anyway, thanks to the advice found here, a water change later I'm now getting along nicely using the dichlor/bleach method with nicely balanced water and a CYA of about 30.

The last step is to add borates. I couldn't find 'gentle spa' or an equivalent here, so have found some borax. My question is regarding adding acid to counteract the pH change - you can't buy HCl here so I'll need to use sodium bisulphate/dry acid 99%. How do I calculate the amount needed? - the poolmath calculator only has HCl/muriatic acid as an option for counteracting borates. And is that quantity of sulphate likely to cause an issue?

Thanks
Gray
 
Found some boric acid! So am I right in thinking it will not alter pH significantly?
 
Geday Doc,
You can find hydrochloric acid at Bunning, 32%. Its not kept with the pool stuff, it’ll be out with the building stuff. Our stores keep it in lockable cages.
 
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