New product to remove calcium hardness??

Total hardness and calcium hardness in pool water.
Scale, calcium buildup, hard water and scaling problems.
czechmate
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New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby czechmate » Wed 19 Jan, 2011 22:57

[quote="joshpooltech"]but if a person is worried about scale or anything along those lines,using the right amount of muriatic acid in a pool is key.if u have a concrete pool whether u have gemcoat,marcite,peb tech etc u want ur ph at 7.4 or 7.6 but dont be content with 7.6 for to long.realistically ur levels will fluctuate but keeping it at 7.4 is ideal.if u have a liner or fiberglass then u keep it at 7.6. but if u have calcium buildup whether its leaching or scale,......................

Certainly one of the longer sentences I have ran across lately.
1. Right amount of acid is hardly a key to potential scale problem.
2. PH of 7.4 is not necessarily ideal if you have high CH and CYA and facing bad CSI.
3. I was under impression that leaching is loosing calcium out of plaster, opposite to buildup.
4.I am still looking for that backyard BBQ recipe for Carolina pull pork, though you covered just about everything else...... :?


czechmate
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New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby czechmate » Thu 20 Jan, 2011 18:14

I did a little research on the Caltreat which is the brand name of this chemical early last summer.
It was not easy, since the active ingredient is NOT named on the bottle. After I finally got hold of the MSDS sheet,I discovered that the active ingredient is the same one, as the one in Calgone product, used to soften water for washers. After months of searching for boxed powdered Calgone product, which until recently was sold in every major food chain store from Target to Walmart, I found out YOU CAN'T FIND IT!! You can't even find it online, with one overpriced exception. Coincidence?? Hardly. So I will still remedy my CH the old fashion way. Control the CSI with PH,TA, salt and borates as long as I can and than drain 60-70% water(in the dry weather) fast and refill. Taking in account the complicated preparation of water required for this Caltreat to work and the fact, that it will do nothing to my high CYA, draining is still a BARGAIN with guaranteed results!
czechmate
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New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby czechmate » Thu 10 Mar, 2011 08:23

I just wanted to add some interesting facts i found about the Calgone powder, which by the way, is again on the market in 40 oz box. Cost about 6 bucks.
Here is an interesting section from a water treatment article.

"Calgone which contains SODIUM HEXAMETAPHOSPOSPHATE (NA 6 P 6 O 18) and similar commercial products remove water cations including calcium ions, by causing them to become part of a larger soluble anions.
Calcium ion from hard water +Hexametaphosphate from NA6P6O18 = Calcium Hexamataphosphate anoin."

As I said in my previous post this ingredient is the main Cal-Treat ingredient. Not listed on the bottle of course. Pool industry is always protective of their chemicals. Otherwise they would be selling regular baking soda, instead of Alkalinity-up.
I am going to try a box of this and test CH after. If it works I could limit the trichlor and use calcium hypochlorite as the main source of chlorine. Leslie's sells 100 pound bucket of CalHypo with 73% available chlorine for around $1.50/pound. Sure, it is not as convenient as a puck, but chlorine demand will stay much lower.
Richard, since this is down your alley, I would sure appreciate if you look at this, if it has any credibility.
Thanks!
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New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby chem geek » Thu 10 Mar, 2011 14:02

Sodium hexametaphosphate is the least stable of the polyphosphates and is also more expensive than most. It is a reasonably strong sequestering agent for calcium. In water, it can break down into sodium trimetaphosphate and sodium orthophosphate so the main side effect is increasing orthophosphate concentrations in water. Other metal sequestering agents can also inhibit scaling without such side effects.

If you are able to find 12.5% (or 10%) chlorinating liquid or 6% unscented bleach at reasonable prices, that would give you a chlorine source that won't increase either CYA nor CH.

Note that you can certainly start a swim season with a somewhat lower CH and use Cal-Hypo since doubling the CH only increases the saturation index by 0.3 units. For every 10 ppm FC added by Cal-Hypo, it increases CH by at least 7 ppm. So at 2 ppm FC per day, after 6 months this is an increase of around 250 ppm which isn't so terrible if you started with 200 and ended up with 450. You wouldn't need a sequestering agent in this case, though you would need to start out with fill water that wasn't high in CH.
czechmate
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New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby czechmate » Thu 10 Mar, 2011 15:45

Thanks Richard.
I really prefer not to mess with the bleach. I have looked at this option many times and even the Clorox brand is only 6%, while most cheap brand never have percentage posted on the label.
Also the storage and handling is not the what I prefer. If this Calgon thing works and I can hold CH at around 300-350ppm and CYA around 40-45ppm than at higher water temperatures around 88-90F all i need to watch is PH and TA to keep CSI at safe levels. Since my CYA is at 100 now, I will be draining about 60% pretty soon. Than I will see if this experiment will work. At this price of Calgon which is a fraction cost of Cal-Treat, it is worth trying.
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New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby molossus » Fri 10 Jun, 2011 10:26

Due to issues with my natural stone deck (bad batch of stone flaking into the pool), I started off with 600 ppm and significant deposits on the plaster. I've gone through three bottles of Caltreat now and I'm down to 350 ppm. Here's what I found. Each time I added a bottle, the pH and chlorine dropped significantly within the first couple hours. I had to add sodium carbonate daily to get back in the range. This was a change for me as I'm always adding acid to keep the pH in balance. After adding the first bottle, the Ca initially dropped but then increased as I started scrubbing off deposits; this may be why the post above indicated an increased rather than a decrease. I also didn't notice much of a precipitate after adding the first bottle and I believe that's because I didn't do a very good job keeping the pH in the higher range. With the second and third bottles, I kept the pH >= 8.0 and both times the water turned cloudy and the filter had a white paste. I also had to clean the filter twice during the 5-day period because it was too clogged to be effective. Given water restrictions in my area, this ended up being a cheaper solution than draining the pool but it required more work than I expected. The instructions certainly could have been better. I noticed another thread where Calgon was mentioned and I'm curious if that worked; would be a cheaper solution if it did.
tinkerette

New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby tinkerette » Mon 27 Jun, 2011 16:39

I too am having issues with scaling my my CH is off the scale, around 800ppm. I have a 15K gunite pool with an ozonator; FC is 2; PH 7.4; Alkalinity 90ppm; CYA 30ppm. I am very diligent about checking levels & strive to keep the PH between 7.2 & 7.5 & the Alkalinity between 80 & 100ppm. I had the pool acid washed last year, but the scaling is back. I think I need to used some calcium free shock, as it seems the scaling gets worse after shocking. We are not far from our city water plant & feel that we are probably getting lots of calcium in the water. We have no heater on the pool. I was at Leslie's Pool Supply the other day & they started telling me about Caltreat. The thing that disturbed me, was you had to raise your PH to between 8.0 & 8.2 before using it. Wouldn't that just make the pool scale up even more? The water is clear & sparkling, no cloudiness or algea. So, what am I needing to do to prevent any more scaling & loosen the existing scaling? I also tried Jack's Magic Copper & Scale, but think my CH was too high even then. Any suggestions are more than welcomed at this point. I've been driving myself crazy trying to figure out what I'm needing to do or what I need to change!!!! :crazy:
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New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby molossus » Sat 02 Jul, 2011 15:14

Tinkerette - With your CH at 800 ppm, you're definately going to have problems unless you either replace some water or try the Caltreat (or Calgon is we hear that works). About your pH concern, maintaining at high levels for a long period of time will certainly damage your pool / equipment but with the Caltreat, you're only talking about ~5 days; that's too short to cause any long-term issues. The product is creating a chemical reaction that causes the calcium to precipitate out; thinking back to chem class (some time back), pH can effect whether or not such a reaction occurs or how easily it occurs. If you have other concerns about the product, suggest you keep researching. If pH was your only concern, suggest you give it a try unless you have another possible solution. If you do use the product, just keep a close watch on the pH or you'll end up wasting some $$ like I did the first time around.

p.s. - Suggest you also have your water tested for TDS before using something like Caltreat. If you're over the limit (generally 3000 ppm for non-salt pools and 6000 ppm for salt pools), then you may solve the CH problem but can still have other problems; high TDS can make it hard to manage pH and can cause other strange issues (beyond the water just feeling hard). The only way I know of to reduce TDS is to replace at least a quarter of your pool volume.
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New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby ortho25 » Tue 18 Oct, 2011 11:30

Thanks for this very informative forum. I had to replace my salt generator yesterday and I had the store do a Taylor WiseLab water test as well. Besides not having any chlorine my alkalinity is 100, Calcium hardness is 825, cyanuric acid is 25, salt is 3400 and phosphates at 300. The idea of using Calgon intrigues me and I was curious to see if anyone has further reports on how this has worked. Based on my calcium numbers I obviously have to do something and I'd like to give this a try but needed some clarification on some things. It was noted that the ph needed to be a little higher (>8) for the treatment to be effective. I take it that this level is to be maintained during the 5 day treatment cycle and that I should not add muriatic acid during this time? I run the filter on my 18,000 gallon plaster pool for 6 hours a day so should I continue this cycle, simply making sure to brush off the sides everyday? Thanks to everyone for your input.
new guy

New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby new guy » Thu 17 Nov, 2011 14:22

It could be a carbonate like sodium carbonate which will precipitate the calcium as a scale.
If it is not sequestering it and its not a phosphate or polyacrylate then the only other assumption is that
is a carbonate. I could be wrong.
czechmate
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New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby czechmate » Sat 19 Nov, 2011 21:29

ortho25 wrote:Thanks for this very informative forum. I had to replace my salt generator yesterday and I had the store do a Taylor WiseLab water test as well. Besides not having any chlorine my alkalinity is 100, Calcium hardness is 825, cyanuric acid is 25, salt is 3400 and phosphates at 300. The idea of using Calgon intrigues me and I was curious to see if anyone has further reports on how this has worked. Based on my calcium numbers I obviously have to do something and I'd like to give this a try but needed some clarification on some things. It was noted that the ph needed to be a little higher (>8) for the treatment to be effective. I take it that this level is to be maintained during the 5 day treatment cycle and that I should not add muriatic acid during this time? I run the filter on my 18,000 gallon plaster pool for 6 hours a day so should I continue this cycle, simply making sure to brush off the sides everyday? Thanks to everyone for your input.

As long as you keep PH low (and temp is 50 -65F), in area 7.6- 7.4 you do not have a imminent danger to the plaster. Of course there is proportional disbalance CH to CYA. Higher CYA would make CSI better in warmer water in your case.
It may hold you thru the winter due to cold water, than drain pool in the spring or before the season.
Vicsandiego

New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby Vicsandiego » Tue 14 Aug, 2012 12:30

Hi guys,
I work for a pool remodeling company, and in the past we had some issues with remodeled pools where the calcium harness level was above 400 ppm. I started using caltreat in some pool and I found out that if you follow the instructions the product works, but you have to follow the instructions they way they are. But I don't think it will work well in pools that already have scale or calcium deposits because this product is to prevent the issue. Also, I'm not sure if the product would work the same in salt pools due to the fact that salt has sodium and as far as I know may increase calcium precipitation. I would recommend using this product at least to give it a try, and if you have a salt pool keeping the salt level around 3000 ppm. I hope this information helps and good luck.
AlanMA

New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby AlanMA » Thu 11 Jul, 2013 22:31

Gents,

Good day! We are specially in controlling calcium hardness for water system. Our technology is green technology which means no any chemical addition to prevent/remove the scale that is deposit on your pool/system. This product is also can inhibit algae grow in your system. Again, it is safe to be used because IT IS NOT A CHEMICAL.

We have many case studies.

Price is competitive. USD238 to be installed for every 4m3 of water volume. The product is effective to be worked for at least 12months.

What you can get:
a) save water
b) Save maintenace cost
c) No harmful to user (not a chemical)
d) Good water quality

If you are interest, please email me to raise your queries. My email is greeneryglobes@gmail.com

best regards,
Alan
chandru

New product to remove calcium hardness??

Postby chandru » Sun 23 Mar, 2014 11:26

TH wrote:The technique is frequently used in Europe, the product that is sold specifically for this purpose is simply *drumroll* . . . sodium oxalate.

No plastic sheet required or anything like that; you just follow the manufacturer's directions (very similar to what has been posted here). Basically the mechanism is an ion exchange between calcium and sodium. The resultant precipitation is calcium oxalate.

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