It's been around for years and they hold the original patents on borate. Sorry Carl, it is not the next "scam". This product has been around much longer than phosphate removers. Supreme plus is a pH neutral mix of the pentahydrate form of borax and boric acid (mostly boric acid). It is very expensive compared to buying generic chemicals but so is alkalinity increaser and pH increaser. Proteam is actually a decent line, IMHO. Their borate product is really no more expensive than the ones from Bioguard and Arch. Supreme is just the pentahydrate form of borax and must be used with an addition of acid, Supreme plus is the pH neutral mix of borax and boric acid. It is convenient to use (I have used it myself) since you just dump in the right amount and you are done. For some people that makes it worth the price.

Actually, it was the Proteam product that we used to sell (and it's claims) that prompted me to do my test on borate using 20 mule team (decahydrate form so you need more by weight for the same borate level) and acid that was documented in the China Shop several years ago to see if it really worked. It did. We carried the full Proteam line and IMHO, it is one of the better ones out there and not ovepriced when compared to some other companies products. They also do not have a lot of combo, mystery goo products (but do have several chlorine/borate products, both trichlor with borate and cal hypo with borate in addition to pure trichlor and dichlor products)

Also, Proteam does have all their MSDS on their website, unlike so many of these other companies these days! Their parent company is Haviland, who makes a lot of 'store brand' products and also has products under the Haviland brand.