Borax can also help to keep water clear and inhibit the growth of algae by stabilizing pH in the proper range.
Borax acts as an effective pH buffer and helps prevent algae growth in swimming pools. Plus, it will leave your water looking sparkly and feeling soft.
It's advisable to add about 20 ounces of borax for every 5,000 gallons of water in your pool. This amount will help increase the pH by approximately 0.5.
If your pool has good circulation, then 30 minutes would be more than adequate to be safe.
It's usually just a temporary reaction as the sanitizer works its magic, and doesn't always indicate a problem. But if the cloudy water persists long after you've shocked the pool, you're likely having an issue with water balance, circulation, or filtration.
Use 20 Mule Team Borax which is quality borate to raise the pH without affecting the TA and see if pH will be stable. If you get too much borate, drain and refill 1/3 to 1/4 of your Pool Water and use pH increaser instead of borate. You can lower both pH and TA using Muriatic acid If they get off the balance.
In the right amounts, borax will do a great job of increasing the pH of an unbalanced pool. Not only that, but it will do so without raising the total alkalinity in the process. Since borax is not a carbonate compound, its effects on the water's alkalinity will be negligible.
Using Borax
And once a pool's pH is brought back down below about 7.8, borax will serve as an effective pH stabilizer. After adding borax to a swimming pool, you won't need to raise or lower its pH as often. Using a chemical like borax to raise a swimming pool's pH comes with certain benefits.
For a 20,000 gal pool, about 60 lbs of Borax, and 4 gallons of acid.
The high pH of Soda Ash itself can create a high-LSI violation in its immediate vicinity. It drastically raises the pH in the water around it, which leads to clouding. This explains why the cloudiness does not happen all at once, rather the process creates a cloudy plume that slowly expands across the pool.
If you use boric acid to increase borate in the water, it will only lower pH by 0.2 and have no effect on total alkalinity. But pH is now 6.32. You must aerate and make turbulence and splashing to raise only pH to 7.5. If you try to raise pH with soda ash from 6.32 to 7.5 you will increase TA from 90 ppm to 312 ppm.
Cloudy Pool Water: Causes, Treatment, and Preventive Measures. Cloudy or milky swimming pool water is caused by seven main issues: improper levels of chlorine, imbalanced pH and alkalinity, very high calcium hardness (CH) levels, faulty or clogged filter, early stages of algae, ammonia, and debris.
Baking soda can work wonders in a pool. Baking soda can: Help to clear cloudy water and restore the sparkle. Spot-treat algae.
Vinegar contains acetic acid which makes it a great disinfectant. It is also acidic in nature hence removes dirt, grease and mineral deposits. If used in the right amount, its acidic nature also plays a role in lowering the pH of pool water.
A weak base, borax is also used in buffer solutions and photographic developers. Since boron is important in the calcium cycle of plants, borax or boric acid is often added to boron poor soils as a fertilizer. Boric acid is obtained by the action of strong acids on borax and is used as a mild disinfectant.
Borates in the 50ppm to 80ppm range are considered acceptable, but most of us aim for 50 and keep it there.
Boric acid and sodium borates are commonly used as a pH buffer in swimming pools and spas, meaning they help increase the capacity of the water to resist changes in pH. However, they have other uses as well: Boric acid and sodium borates can inhibit algae growth and reduce corrosion.
The most common type of pool clarifier chemical sold and used is known as a PolyDADMAC, an ammonium chloride with a highly positive charge density. Different concentrations of 10% to 40% are useful for nearly any negatively charged colloidal particles.
However, sometimes a balanced pool will become cloudy immediately after being shocked. This typically clears quickly on its own and shouldn't be considered a problem. Environmental factors include pretty much everything around the pool like severe weather, wildlife, construction, trees, pool algae, and people.
For the most part, yes. It can be unattractive and it should be addressed, but it is mostly safe to swim in cloudy water. The only exception would be if the pool is cloudy because there are too many chemicals in it. This pool water would be unsafe to swim in and should be avoided.
Baking Soda
Most remedies call for adding additional chlorine into the water. If your water's pH balance is between 7.2 and 7.5, however, you can add baking soda to the water to help clear it up. This serves as a replacement for chlorine because baking soda is a natural cleaning agent.