Waterline cleaner...

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RASelkirk

Well-known member
Jul 11, 2015
141
Port Neches, TX
Hi All,

Salesman from American Pools in Houston came by last year to bid on fixing a crack in the deep end. While he was here he showed me a powdered chemical that when sprinkled near the waterline, completely removed it without scrubbing. Seems he wanted ~ $20 for about a quart-sized bottle. Of course he wouldn't tell me what it was, only that it was a "food additive". I'm thinking it was either citric or ascorbic acid. Whatever it was, it worked great!

Any ideas?

Russ
 
Ha … food additive. I would have handed him a plastic spoon and said, “oh yeah, eat some then!”

It could have been any number of different fine granular dry acid compounds. Sodium bisulfate is a “food additive” but I’m not about to put that in my pool.

Perhaps if you can get the name of the product, it would be easier to track down.
 
RASelkirk said:
About the best I could do would be to order some and have a lab test it. Hoping someone here has run across this stuff before...

Russ
Click to expand...

Was it an actual consumer product or something this guy just mixes up in his shed on the weekends?
 
I'm assuming it's a bulk consumer product (baking ingredient or other food additive) being used outside of it's intended use. I got the impression he stumbled across it as a cleaner, repackaged it in a no-name container, and is selling it as a cleaning product. Because he stated it was a food additive, I did a finger-dip taste and my thoughts immediately went to a preservative or flavoring agent like citric/ascorbic acid...

Russ
 
Citric acid will definitely remove calcium carbonate scale. It’s fairly acidic and it’s good at softening all kinds of mineral scale. Ascorbic acid is less useful for that purpose. Oxalic acid is also useful for that purpose as is sulfamic acid and sodium bisulfate. But you really don’t want any of those in your pool as citric acid will neutralize chlorine, oxalic acid is toxic (causes kidney damage), sulfamic acid reacts with chlorine to form high levels of chlorosulfamate which shows up as CCs and sodium bisulfate adds sulfate to the water that can damage SWGs.

Without knowing what it is, it’s not worth it in my opinion. Your mileage may vary …
 
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