Do I need to do anything to TA before adding borates?

[chazas]

I added borates to a prior SWG pool and enjoyed the "feel" of them. I always fought upward pH drift in that pool, and I think they helped with that. No such issues in my current SWG pool, where the TA AND pH in this pool are pretty darn stable. But on balance I'd rather have them again.

My TA is at the upper end of the range, do I need to adjust it downwards before adding boric acid? The "further reading" section on borates doesn't mention it, but this thread suggests so.

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

A few folks asked for a sticky on this so here it is. If you just want to jump to how without the why look for the blue part of this post below! :wink: Several companies are selling sodium tetraborate pentahydrate as a pool additive under such names as Proteam's Supreme, Bioguard's Optimizer...

www.troublefreepool.com

Here are my current test results:

FC 10.0 (should drift down a tad more after a SLAM to combat some kind of invisible growth)
pH 7.6
TA 90
CH 500 (It was about 300 but I bumped it up a bit this season, overshot my 450 goal by a tad)
CYA 60
Salt 3800
CSI -.01
Temp 78

 

[mknauss]

No reason.

I would not add calcium to this pool. No real need. A CH of 200, give or take, will satisfy the heater specs.

 

[chazas]

No reason.

I would not add calcium to this pool. No real need. A CH of 200, give or take, will satisfy the heater specs.

Thanks.

I was often flirting with the lower end of CSI range. I've not been thrilled with the finish on this fiberglass pool and decided I'd prefer to keep CSI closer to -0- than quite so negative. I played around with Poomath and this seemed the easiest fix. In any event, already done.