Borate application, redux

[chem geek]

But of course...use it freely! The most important point, though, is that the carbonates are a SOURCE of rising pH in their own right. So while they buffer pH, they also CAUSE rising pH. That's the most critical concept to understand. Otherwise, if we only talk about buffers and how they get stronger in one direction or another, then people will think that they can balance each other out and that having a higher TA is no problem if you just have more borates. That isn't true, of course, though the borates may make the rate of the pH rise less, there will still be as much acid that needs to be added. The only real way to save on the amount of acid needed is to lower the TA (and/or have a higher pH target -- i.e. don't try and lower the pH as much).

The thing I don't like about the spring analogy is that it still implies some sort of pressure or movement when it's more like resistance to change. That is, though the spring will make it harder to compress, it isn't really causing the pH to bounce back the other direction after you stop adding acid or base. It's more like viscosity where it gets more viscous so harder to move as you get closer to the pH buffer's strongest pH point, but once you stop applying acid or base, it stops moving (except for the carbon dioxide effect which is essentially removing carbonic acid from the pool).