too many chemicals at one time?

[bjw66]

I've waited a little late about closing my pool for the winter. It's a must now. I need to add an winter algacide, a stain treatment, borax (for raising pH), and baking soda(for raising alkalinity). Is that too much chemical change for a 24 hour period?

[chem geek]

No, it's fine, but tricky to figure out how much to add. If you need to raise both the pH and the alkalinity, then you can use pH Up or Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (careful: not the laundry detergent) since these are both Sodium Carbonate. If you post a full set of water chemistry numbers, especially pH, Total Alkalinity (TA), Cyanuric Acid (CYA) as well as the pool water volume, I can tell you exactly how much you need to add.

The only thing that probably won't be able to be added when adjusting chemicals is the stain treatment. If it's a metal sequestrant, then that can be added with the other chemicals, but if it's a treatment such as ascorbic acid, then that requires the chlorine level to be very low so an algaecide should be added first, then the stain treatment done, and after that you can adjust the other chemicals.

As for the algaecide, I would add that at the end after adjusting the other chemicals (unless doing the ascorbic acid stain treatment as mentioned above) and I would only use PolyQuat algaecide (60% being the most economical).

Richard