Vinegar, NO, how about Acetic or muriatic acid?

[littlesilvermax]

When my tank is finally empty, I was thinking about cleaning it all out (overflow, plumbing, pumps, skimmer, etc...) by running vinegar through it for a few days.

Obviously 330 gallons of vinegar is a little costly, so I was thinking about using more pure acetic acid, and mixing to a 5% ratio (vinegar is just that, 5% acetic acid).

That is all good, but I cannot find acetic acid locally, or more specifically where to look. Any ideas?

I can get muriatic acid locally (pool supply places). Will that work? Will it harm anything?

[banditpowdercoat]

I know Muriatic is Hydrochloric acid. I use it for eating aluminum and removing the Galvanized coatings of of metals. It will leave a residue and most likely render the tank useless.

Why not just a really diluted vinegar? I would think 5-10g in freshwater would loosen up the coraline after a few days

[untamed]

1L of vinegar with 50 gallons of warm water left circulating for 1 day does a wonderful job of cleaning deposits out of my SW mixer even though that is an extremely dilute mix of acetic.

[workn2hard2day]

Vinegar comes in different strentghs, get the bottle for household cleaning. I get it at Save on foods.

[Chin_Lee]

Ben
I use muriatic acid on regular basis for cleaning my pumps/calcified equipment. I don't see any problems as long as its diluted. if you have a pH meter, maybe just add enough to bring the pH down to 4. u'll probably have to add a bit more throughout the day to keep it at 4.

[banditpowdercoat]

Ben
I use muriatic acid on regular basis for cleaning my pumps/calcified equipment. I don't see any problems as long as its diluted. if you have a pH meter, maybe just add enough to bring the pH down to 4. u'll probably have to add a bit more throughout the day to keep it at 4.

Well, thats re-assuring for sure. :D

[Chin_Lee]

I believe JL's used to sell the crystalized muriatic acid to clean clacified pumps and hardware. i can't find it on their website now but it was highly effective.

[Myka]

I believe JL's used to sell the crystalized muriatic acid to clean clacified pumps and hardware. i can't find it on their website now but it was highly effective.

Ya, it worked really well. They used it in-store too. I can't remember what brand it was called or the dosing amount.

[fencer]

warm water when you clean with vinegar...use a heater

[littlesilvermax]

Randy at RC says to use the muriatic acid. Way stronger then Acetic, but with less added it obviously has less buffering capacity, so I may need to add more as it eats up coraline and stuff.

Boy my house is gonna stink!

[Aquattro]

Remember, add acid to water, not the other way around. and neutralize it before disposal, a few boxes of baking soda should do it.

[Chin_Lee]

WAYYY off on a side note, there's many literature about adding vinegar to kalkwater to saturate the cal/alk levels. Does the same benefits apply with HCL?

[littlesilvermax]

Scrapped off a ton of coraline, maybe 4 or 5 lbs (not kidding either).

Tank is full of tap water now, added about 1 liter of muriatic acid to tank, ph dropped to 2.4. (330 gallons of system water). Within 30 mins ph went up to 2.8, added another liter. Then after a few hours added a few more liters. Ph is now at about 2.2. Not sure how low I should go, I will watch it over the next little while, see how it is tomorrow.

So far we cannot smell it in the house, but the skimmer is going crazy!

[littlesilvermax]

FWIW I bought 40 liters of muriatic acid.