saltwater pools

[ReadyFreddy]

I'm assuming the white line is at the water line? There are various things you can do to remove the white line. Some people scrub it with stiff brushes and CLR type cleaners and tile bricks. It's due to hard water deposits, if it's what I think it is. You can't do anything to stop it from happening and you're not doing anything wrong. The water here is very hard and that build-up just happens. I would say re-tile in a tile that hides it better or get used to it. If it's pebble-tec at the water line, I've used a company called Scumbusters to do a sandblasting type treatment on it. It's fairly gentle and safe, as it uses little plastic (?) pellets instead of sand.

[kdog]

That's called scaling, and is a common chemistry problem. It's caused by dissolved calcium in the water which builds up on surfaces, especially at the water line. The biggest factor in preventing this is rigorous PH control. All pools made of plaster and cement will tend to slowly increase PH, and a salt water chlorine generator accelerates that process. PH should be monitored and adjusted weekly at a minimum. Get a PH test kit, and buy a bunch of pool acid, either liquid muriatic acid, or dry (granular) acid. You can buy the test kit and acid at Home Depot, which will may be a lot cheaper than your local pool store.

Even with a salt-water generator, you should monitor your chlorine level as well. Adjust the output of your generator so your chlorine stays at optimum levels. Keep liquid or dry chlorine on hand to make emergency adjustments if your level gets too far out of whack. Your in-laws should do some reading on pool chemistry and there are some good forums out there like this one: http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-...alcium_scaling

You can hire a pool service to take care of all this, but a good one is hard to find.

[exitplan]

The white line I assume is on the tile? Its calcium. Its a nightmare! The water in AZ is super hard here and unless you have a salt water pool you will likely have to deal with it like everyone else... scrub like crazy. I have a pool service and they do the basics but they don't scrub this off. I have had to resort to doing it myself, I have found that if you invite friends over in the summer and have your blender ready to go you can give them all a putty knife and their red solo cup full of margaritas and it gets done pretty fast!
Good Luck!

[ReadyFreddy]

I learned something! Ignore my advice above. I never knew you could control calcium through PH. There is more misinformation in the pool industry than about any I've ever found.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by exitplan

The white line I assume is on the tile? Its calcium. Its a nightmare! The water in AZ is super hard here and unless you have a salt water pool you will likely have to deal with it like everyone else... scrub like crazy. I have a pool service and they do the basics but they don't scrub this off. I have had to resort to doing it myself, I have found that if you invite friends over in the summer and have your blender ready to go you can give them all a putty knife and their red solo cup full of margaritas and it gets done pretty fast!
Good Luck!

Salt pools don't have any less calcium than unsalted pools. A salt water pool makes no difference except possibly to make it worse because you have to monitor pH more carefully as explained in kdog's post. Another major culprit is auto water level controls that keep the level the same all the time so that salts are deposited in the same place making the line more obvious. There are services that remove the deposits but it is only so-so effective. You can still see the mark. The best method is to have a neutral tile, not a dark one, to hide the lines.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by ReadyFreddy

I learned something! Ignore my advice above. I never knew you could control calcium through PH. There is more misinformation in the pool industry than about any I've ever found.

Calcium precipitates (come out of the water) and deposits on pool walls at higher pH. Keeping pH down will help but it is not going to eliminate the bathtub ring.

[ReadyFreddy]

I had a pool once that had tile with a random whitish design over the brown-ish background color of the tile. That did a good job of making the calcium line hard to see. The design was sort of like a marble. I think pool builders would know which tiles hide it best. I'd never have another pebble tec 'rolled edge'. That showed it really bad.