I suspect I have some buildup inside the plumbing of my spa. I use BaquaSpa and it tends to gunk things up. I'd like to fill it and run something though the plumbing to give it a good cleaning. Any ideas? I thought of lowering the PH to make the water acidic,run it through a few cycles then drain and refill, but not sure if that is the best approach. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Hi tom,

With the new heater, you won't be producing Calcium Scale ( for a while ).
Do not try to run acidic in any spa. The PH scale is logarithmic, or exponential to the tenth power. Below 7.0 is taring up the equipment. Keep the two port return cleared with a coat hanger piece, and siphon out the filter cannister of any scale chips. Keep checking it's flow out of both return ports when the booster pump is on. The Calcium Hardness Increaser is the culprit in this, and the hot points within the system will scale out, so don't be overly concerned with the rest of the plumbing lines.

inhotwater - Thanks for the info. I ended up filling it up with fresh water, running it for a few hours, draining it and filling again after replacing the heater. I'm glad I didn't try the acidic rinse I was thinking about. My local spa tech had told me about the coat hanger trick, I've been doing that for a few years. I also recently started using a small length of hose to siphon out the filter canister when I see chips in there, so I guess I'm on the right track with that. Thanks again.

IMHO an acid rinse insn't as nasty as some ppl make it out to seem. When I have a precipitate problem in my spa I add one gallon muratic acid to the water, cycle for a half hour, drain, and refill. Problem goes away, spa still runs, been doing it for 3 years. I've done this with other spas with a nasty calcium buildup as well without any negative effects. It's all about how long you leave the water acidic.