bleach ingredients?

I started using Walmart bleach after coming across this forum, and am wondering what the 91.75% "other ingredients" are. I assume the major one is water, but it says ingredients plural so there must be some other stuff that I probably would rather not have in the pool.

I'm a relatively new pool owner, didn't know a thing about pools before a year ago, but quickly discovered the previous pool maintener (a "service") had been using dichlor tablets forever and the CYA level was _way_ high, finally got it down to 100 and have been using only bleach. Water is very clear, no problems with it so far.

Another thing - there's a buildup of white stuff right above the water line, not any below the line. How to get rid of it? Any cleaner would run down into the water. Is it OK to just try brushing it off, assuming it would then be filtered out? The local water here is extremely hard, the hardness test of the pool water is at the upper limit of the scale.

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Originally Posted by vwerz34

I started using Walmart bleach after coming across this forum, and am wondering what the 91.75% "other ingredients" are. I assume the major one is water, but it says ingredients plural so there must be some other stuff that I probably would rather not have in the pool.

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Nope, it's mostly water and a bit of salt, sodium carbonate, and sodium hydroxide to maintain the pH. Some bleaches also add a bit of sodium polyacrylate as a chelator. All of the above are also pool chemicals. Salt is used in salt pools and is a normal byproduct in all pool water as an end product of chlorine usage. Sodium carbonate is pH increaser, sodium hydroxide is also a pH modulator and can be used as a pH increaser in pools but because it is caustic in its dry form the safer alternatives of sodium carbonate and sodium tetraborate (borax) are used instead. However, once in solution in the proper concentration the sodium hydroxide adds nothing extra while the sodium carbonae increases TA and the borax increases borate level. Sodium polyacrylate is a common ingredient in cationic pool clarifiers. So you see you are not adding anything that probably is not already in there!

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I'm a relatively new pool owner, didn't know a thing about pools before a year ago, but quickly discovered the previous pool maintener (a "service") had been using dichlor tablets forever and the CYA level was _way_ high, finally got it down to 100 and have been using only bleach. Water is very clear, no problems with it so far.

Another thing - there's a buildup of white stuff right above the water line, not any below the line. How to get rid of it? Any cleaner would run down into the water.

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If the cleaner is made for cleaning waterline tlle is is perfectly OK. I suspect it is calcium carbonate (scale) buildup and the easiest way to get rid of it is diluted muriatic acid, a mix of muriatic acid and tile soap, or a commerical acidic waterline tile cleaner. None of these will have any major negative impact on your pool water. If the buildup is silica scale then you might have to resort to a pumice stone and scrub it off. Silica scale does not respond to the above methods but it is not as common as calcium carbonate scale buildup.

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Is it OK to just try brushing it off, assuming it would then be filtered out? The local water here is extremely hard, the hardness test of the pool water is at the upper limit of the scale.

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You can try brushing it off but if it is scale it probably won't budge.

membership updated.

Thanks, good to know about the ingredients.

Also, great idea to use the muriatic acid to clean the white stuff, since I already have some for the occasional ph adjustment. I'm sure you're right, just brushing wouldn't do anything.