Eric walks through what a clarifier is, what chitosan is, and how they work in water. Then how to use CE-Clarifier and frequently asked questions. You know, all the boring stuff about our products. But hey, maybe this podcast will mean we can repeat ourselves less on the phone, so we've got that going for us.
00:00 - Intro
00:27 - What is a clarifier?
01:28 - What is chitosan?
04:38 - What does CE-Clarifier do?
06:08 - How to use CE-Clarifier
09:23 - Frequently asked questions
11:49 - Summary. Thanks for listening!
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67. How to use CE-Clarifier
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[00:00:00] Eric Knight: Welcome back to the Rule Your Pool podcast. This is episode 67, and we are going to be talking about how to use CE-Clarifier. We're in the home stretch of this series on how to use our products. And it feels good, because we got a lot of new topics. More exciting topics to cover in future episodes. So thank you for sticking with us. Um, yeah let's get into it. How to use CE-Clarifier.
What is a clarifier?
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[00:00:27] Eric Knight: I think it's worth starting with what a clarifier actually is. It's got a pretty good name to it, it's very descriptive. It clarifies water. Now most clarifiers on the market are polymer-based and they work really well. What they do is they coagulate particulates, dust, debris, whatever, uh, kind of stick them together, make them heavier, and sink them. And they go through the main drain, get filtered out, real nice. And it happens pretty quickly too.
[00:01:14] So clarifiers work and you either kind of pour it around the perimeter or broadcast it out, depends on the product. But they're popular for a reason. Because they help get water clarity better in a very short amount of time.
[00:01:28] And then there's a different type of clarifier. So those are polymers, and then there's a biopolymer or more specifically a natural way of doing this. Using something called chitosan. Now, most people, when they look at this word would mispronounce it. I know I did. I thought it was chit-o-san, or chitosan. Or, well I dunno, insert wrong pronunciation here, Eric. Uh, it is spelled C H I T O S A N. Chitosan. All right. And that is derived from something called chitin, C H I T I N.
[00:02:03] Now this is not a spelling bee. You don't need to know that. But I want to explain what this is and why it's so cool. And it works really well in swimming pools. Chitin is a biopolymer by-product of crustacean exoskeletons. So what happens is, in our food processing industry, when you get shrimp crab, lobster, krill, all of those animals from the ocean have meat, and we don't want to eat the shells. We want to eat the meat.
[00:02:33] So what happens to the shells? When you process and get crab cakes or whatever else, you got a ton of these exoskeletons and it's waste. What do you do? Throw it in a landfill? Let it decompose? Well, you could. But you could also harvest that and extract something out of it, which is used in a lot of different applications, including drinking water, electronics and, uh, you know, all sorts of stuff.
[00:02:57] So this chitin comes from crushed exoskeletons of crustaceans. I read online and I actually did a lot of research on this, I went down a rabbit hole for you, the audience of the Rule Your Pool podcast. And I found out that in this process, they go through something, two new words that I did not know were words: demineralization and deproteinization. Did not know those were actual words, but they were on the NIH website. So I'm going to guess they're real words.
[00:03:31] Basically, it's taking the proteins out and the minerals out, and specifically to the proteins that's worth mentioning, because one of the big questions that we get is about allergies. If you have a shellfish, or crustacean allergy, then chitosan is pretty scary. Right? But you don't have to worry about that because this process eliminates those proteins.
[00:03:58] It's manufactured right out of it. So what we're actually taking is the physical crushed exoskeletons without any of the proteins, without any of the minerals, just the chitin, and then it is processed into chitosan somehow. I have no idea how. We blend it into a clarifier that adds CV-600 enzymes to it.
[00:04:19] So we wanted to make our clarifier stronger than any other clarifier, with no blue dye in it. And you know, all-natural, all that good stuff. So we have the clarifier, which is chitosan, with a little bit of CV-600 to sort of help with the oils and the surface tension of the water. And it works really well together.
What does CE-Clarifier do?
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[00:04:38] Eric Knight: And so what chitosan does, as opposed to a synthetic polymer, is it kind of floats in the top, I don't know, 12 to 18 inches or so. We've never measured. But it attracts particles until that particle gets heavy enough that it sinks. And this could take days, it could take hours, it could take weeks. Who knows?
[00:04:58] But we do know that it attracts and attracts and attracts and attracts until it's ready to fall. As opposed to a synthetic polymer, which attracts everything that's there right now and sinks faster. At least that's our understanding of it. So if you're looking for really quick results, um, a synthetic one might work faster for you.
[00:05:17] If you're looking for something that's going to sustain for days, if not a week or more, maybe CE-Clarifier is a better pick. It also has those enzymes in there. So that's the difference between a chitosan clarifier and a typical clarifier that's a polymer.
[00:05:32] So two different ways of, uh, I don't want to say flocking cause it's not a floc. But in a way it kind of is because it's attracting particles together, kind of like a sequestering agent pulls metals to it and clusters them together. And so they're big enough to get filtered out. It's very similar to that, except it's not with metals, it's just with dirt.
[00:05:53] And what happens is this chitosan has a very strong electrical charge. And so it pulls things to it. It's very effective at it. So anyways, that's how it works. So let me talk about how to use it and then we'll get into the frequently asked questions.
How to use CE-Clarifier
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[00:06:08] Eric Knight: Uh, the first dose, if you have not already purged with CV-600 or 700, as we've discussed in previous episodes, is four ounces per 10,000 gallons.
[00:06:19] And just kind of broadcast it across the middle of the pool. If you purged and did it the right way, in my opinion, with CV-600 or CV-700, you don't need to do that dose. There's no need for it. Just do one ounce per 10,000 gallons a week. That's it. So it's a very small dose. A lot of people will put it in sprayer bottles. Much like with PR 10,000, we can't really endorse that because we don't package it in sprayer bottles.
[00:06:46] But once you buy the product, you can do what you need to do with it. It's your product. But it, can't have an NSF label on it. So you could put it in a spray bottle, you can toss it in a measuring cup and just kind of fling it out there across the middle of the pool. And one thing that a lot of people will do is they'll throw in the clarifier early when they get to the pool, especially if there's leaves, pollen, and stuff like that. Because the surfactant in it will spread, and it'll push the debris around the perimeter of the pool. So you kind of throw it down the middle.
[00:07:16] I know some people have done it with dish soap. Because again, it's a surfactant, so it'll push things to the side. It makes it easier to net out the leaves and whatever else.
[00:07:26] That's one way to do it. But again, it's really used in conjunction after an enzyme purge. So let me back up and get back onto the enzyme conversation for a second. We talked about in the episode about 600 and 700. The reason that you are re-upping your enzyme is because they get used up over time.
[00:07:45] And so the weekly dose of CV 600 or 700 is designed to just re-up the residual that you created with the purge. If you don't have a big bather load, say the pool only gets used one or two times a week, if that. You might find that CE-Clarifier is a really good option for weekly maintenance in replacement of, you know, the two to five ounces of enzyme.
[00:08:12] Now it's not nearly as strong, but if you don't have the bather load to justify the extra cost of enzymes, clarifier is less expensive and it has the ability to re-up your enzyme residual. It's just got a lot less enzyme in it. But if you're more concerned about particles, or, perfect example, what if the water doesn't hardly ever get used? Like a fountain? Or a little artistic feature that people don't actually get in.
[00:08:42] That's a perfect application for clarifier. We do a lot of fountains. We do a lot of show water with clarifier, cause there's no bathers in it. You just want it to look really good. You want to get the particles out. That's a good application for CE-Clarifier.
[00:08:55] But if you are using CV 600 or 700 on a weekly basis, you probably don't need clarifier. It's kind of redundant. One exception to that might be if you get a whole bunch of dirt in there from a windstorm or during pollen season, for sure, just a little bit of clarifier can help you get that pollen out faster. But I mean, enzymes can handle it too, it's just, it depends on how you want to handle your pool. That's all I'm saying.
[00:09:23] Okay. So. Now we're going to go through the frequently asked questions and wrap this episode up nice and quickly for you.
[00:09:31] Thank you for your patience. Thank you for even being here, still listening to our droning-on podcast. Okay. What is chitosan? Well I already explained. Chitosan is crushed exoskeletons of crustaceans that have gone through a process that takes out the proteins and the minerals, and it creates a strong electrical charge when it's put in water. It is all natural, it is non-toxic and it helps cluster things together. It's derived from chitin. I think we already covered that one.
[00:10:01] Can CE-Clarifier trigger shellfish or crustacean allergies? No. A definitive no. Because long before we get it, all those proteins have been removed.
[00:10:14] How long until it is safe to swim after using CE-Clarifier? You can swim immediately. In fact, you can add it while you're in the pool. It used to meet the NSF 60 drinking water standard. We let that lapse because we don't need that standard in the pool business, but we didn't change the formula. Just like our enzyme product, very safe. You could use it while bathers are in the pool. So no delay whatsoever.
[00:10:37] Does CE-Clarifier leave behind a residual? Yes. Especially if you purged originally with CV-600 or 700. It is re-upping that residual. So you'll get a little bit of an enzyme residual, but basically the chitosan is going to stay in there until it attracts enough particles to it for it to sink and get filtered out. That's the whole point. You want it to have a bit of a residual, unlike, you know, a synthetic clarifier that'll work really quick and kind of be out of your system very quickly. Chitosan is gonna wait. Chitosan is gonna hang out until there's enough for it to justify getting heavy enough or big enough to sink to the bottom and get filtered out.
[00:11:18] That's probably the most inefficient way for me to describe it. Now that I'm saying that out loud, but you know what, we're doing this in one take. So we're just going to, we're going to roll with it.
[00:11:26] Can CE-Clarifier be used in salt water pools? Yes. Every Orenda product can. It is so funny to me how many people ask "can your stuff be used in saltwater pools?" Yup. The answer to that is always yes. If it's an Orenda product, yes, it can.
[00:11:42] And finally, what is the shelf life of CE-Clarifier? Just like everything else. It's a hundred years, plus, as long as you don't let it freeze.
[00:11:49] And just like that we are done with this episode. Not a lot of frequently asked questions about the enzymes. We get tons of questions about PR 10,000. A lot about SC-1000. Hardly any about this. But thank you for putting up with it. This has been episode 67. In the next one, we're going to do SPA-500. I've made that decision, because we do get some questions about that. And then we are off and running with a lot of great topics that you have submitted to us. You the listeners, thank you for that. The email again: podcast@orendatech.com.
[00:12:28] That's how I'm getting so many great ideas, so keep feeding us the questions. We'll do the research and figure things out. I'm Eric Knight with Orenda, the host here doing this one alone and the next one will also be alone. But in episode, let's see, 60 in episode 69, we're going to have somebody back. Maybe Joe, maybe Jared, you know, it depends.
[00:12:46] It depends on what the fans demand. We're going to have somebody back because I'm tired of doing these alone. I need somebody to talk to. Thank you so much. Take care, everyone.