Quote Originally Posted by aylad
I don't know about the test for sodium tetraborate, I'll leave that to someone who knows about it, but your statement that "we will be ading 45 pounds of Mule Team, along with muratic acid" really scares me.....you don't need to add 45 pounds of ANYTHING to a 15K gallon pool! 20 Mule Team Borax raises pH, and muriatic acid lowers it. You don't need to add both--if you do, you're wasting money and chems. All you need to do for pH is raise it with Borax or lower it with muriatic acid to keep it between 7.2-7.8--but you need to add slowly, so as not to overshoot your target number.

Janet
Hi Janet and all,

I am adding the sodium tetraborate to lower the calcium in the water which is over 500. We have a special colored quartz plaster that does best with calcium around 250. The calcium is coming from our water source which is lake water. We are under drought conditions and the calcium is high straight from the tap. Also, the pool is new (only two weeks old!) and the fresh plaster also adds to the calcium.

The sodium tetraborate also increases pH, which is why muriatic acid will be added to compensate for the elevation caused by the borax.

The borax does not remove the calcium in the pool, it only "neutralizes" it so that scaling and deposits won't occur. If I use a calcium hardness test, it will still show me that the calcium is high, though not harmful..............therefore the test will tell me nothing.

I am looking for a test that will tell me how much sodium tetraborate is in the water in order to determine if I have enough to fight the calcium. The product "Endure" is sodium tetraborate and the label tells me I should add 60 pounds for my 15K pool. I wanted to start with 45 pounds and then test.

If my chemistry thinking is off, please let me know! I'm very new to all this and want to make sure I my thoughts are correct.

Take care,

Shari