My ranch is in McCulloch Co. We have some old pvc water lines that have become partially clogged with moss and are barely flowing. Any ideas or companies that can unclog these lines? Hate to spend the money to replace is we can get them cleared out. Appreciate any help or ideas.

How long are they? You can try compressed air, a water hose with a jet nozzle, a thin drain snake, etc

What is the water used for?
You can try injecting a high concentration of chlorine with some muriatic acid (pool acid) to kill the moss then high pressure flushing it.

How do you know moss is your issue? Is the pvc cracking or has stuff like moss/roots made it in through old joints?

How long of a run are we talking, and what size?

Generally you want to mix a 50/50 solution of normal 2% household bleach and water and fill the lines. Let it sit for 24 hours, then flush with high pressure water.

Poster abover said muriatic acid, which will also work. I *think* you need to be more careful with concentration, especially on older lines or lines that have UV damage. But one of the chemical engineer types on here could confirm that or not.

You can use a pressure washer to flush the lines. Suggest adding a valve on the open ends so you can develop pressure, then release. Burst pressure is listed below, for new pipe. I'd keep it at max half that pressure.*

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/pvc-cpvc-pipes-pressures-d_796.html#google_vignette

*You need to know if you have cracked lines first though

Thanks for great responses. Line goes from above ground stone reservoir to water troughs. Covers about 6000 feet. We have a leak at the intake from bottom of reservoir which allows moss into line. We will let reservoir go down in future to repair leak so we can keep moss out of line. When we find leaks along path we find moss in lower half of pipe. I think we will open one of the repair jobs that's about a third of the way and put air pressure on input end and see if it clears out. The line was early pvc and is fragile so replacement is highly probable but would prefer to delay if possible. I've just replaced about 10,000 feet of fencing so would like to push this back. Didn't know if there are companies that deal with these issues.

In the future stock the reservoir with some cheap goldfish and they will control the moss growing in the tank, etc. you will need a filter or screen to keep them from going into the pipeline.

In pipelines it is a white, slimy gunk that really isn't "moss" like we normally think of. Slime mold? 6000 feet is a lot of chlorox and Lordy, the pressure to blow that out the other end!

Monkeypoxfighter said:

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In pipelines it is a white, slimy gunk that really isn't "moss" like we normally think of. Slime mold? 6000 feet is a lot of chlorox and Lordy, the pressure to blow that out the other end!

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Good point. I remember arguing with engineers that we should design livestock lines (especially gravity flow ones) a quarter inch larger just to compensate for this.

Can also try copper:

https://www.sancoind.com/en/stock-plex

Don't use if you have goats, but cattle are pretty tolerant.

This post hurts my eyes.

I'm constantly repairing and splicing leaks in buried 1" polypipe at deer camp. At some point the previous owner or his worker must have had a trencher and got cute and buried the lines 3' deep. I hate having the well work overtime when I'm down there and there is a split in the pipe or a bad coupler.

schmellba99 said:

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How long of a run are we talking, and what size?

Generally you want to mix a 50/50 solution of normal 2% household bleach and water and fill the lines. Let it sit for 24 hours, then flush with high pressure water.

Poster abover said muriatic acid, which will also work. I *think* you need to be more careful with concentration, especially on older lines or lines that have UV damage. But one of the chemical engineer types on here could confirm that or not.

You can use a pressure washer to flush the lines. Suggest adding a valve on the open ends so you can develop pressure, then release. Burst pressure is listed below, for new pipe. I'd keep it at max half that pressure.*

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/pvc-cpvc-pipes-pressures-d_796.html#google_vignette

*You need to know if you have cracked lines first though

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This sounds like it would work… fill that sucker with high chlorine water and let it sit a day or so… maybe even use a bucket with a bunch of chlorine tablets on top of one of those little black sump pumps you get at Home Depot …. Run a water hose into the bucket and suck the water down over all those chlorine tablets… I did this in Port A for the pool after the hurricane when we didn't have power… I used a generator to run the pump and let it go for 8-10 hours… pool went from dark dark green to hazy blue by day two

Monkeypoxfighter said:

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In pipelines it is a white, slimy gunk that really isn't "moss" like we normally think of. Slime mold? 6000 feet is a lot of chlorox and Lordy, the pressure to blow that out the other end!

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It's about 4 gallons of 12.5% hypochlorite, which you can get off of Amazon
For regular bleach, it would be around 11 gallons

*Assuming 1" pipe