Bilge water test

[cdogg]

I'll start by saying I don't want to taste it !!

Does anyone know if there is any test kit available to check whether bilge water is salt or fresh? (Litmus type paper or the like). The bilge has always been completely dry until recently and although the leak is very small at the moment (or it was when I left the boat!), something is threatening to develop. Being a very shallow bilge the water runs from side to side when moving around in the boat so it is even difficult to identify which side it is coming from.

I offered to take a small sample of the water to my local chandlers, but no one there is game to taste it

Thanks

 

[SAMYL]

Dip your finger in then lick it, it will not kill you, after all you go swimming in both fresh and salt water.

Unless of course you have done something in the bilge that you are embarrassed to tell us about

 

[bert49uk]

boil it, if salt christals left it is salt

 

[Boo2]

Does anyone know if there is any test kit available to check whether bilge water is salt or fresh?

You could use the swinging needle type of aquarium hydrometer. There's one here on eBay for less than £3, but you can also buy them at aquarium shops.

Hth,

Boo2

 

[Fr J Hackett]

You really need to test it with Silver Nitrate solution, do you know anyone in the education game that would have access or know a science teacher? A couple of drops and it will go cloudy white in the presence of chloride ions from sea water however it would surprise me if you hadn't had some sea water in there at sometime so it may well give a false test. Don't be a woose taste it

 

[cdogg]

Dip your finger in then lick it, it will not kill you, after all you go swimming in both fresh and salt water.

Unless of course you have done something in the bilge that you are embarrassed to tell us about

No, nothing to declare/admit.

However, in theory there is a potential cocktail of ATF/coolant/cleaners/battery acid anything that may have leaked from the fridge compressor/and whatever else might have found its way down there.

Unlikely perhaps, but I don't fancy tasting it all the same.

I will try boiling some though.

 

[VicS]

Electrical conductivity is the first thing i would have done if you'd brought a sample into my lab.

But you need a conductivity meter and cell.

Id just taste it other wise

 

[cdogg]

Woose, who me? I can see the pressure building to taste it! Talk about peer pressure.
Ok, short of some suggestions that may still be posted, I will taste it this weekend, unless I can persuade my wife to try it first.
Thanks

 

[Heckler]

Woose, who me? I can see the pressure building to taste it! Talk about peer pressure.
Ok, short of some suggestions that may still be posted, I will taste it this weekend, unless I can persuade my wife to try it first.
Thanks

For gods sake! man up
a quick flick of the tongue and copious spitting!
The thing is the tongue is that sensitive it will tell you, sewater, fresh or brackish. Then you can make an informed decision as to what you think it is. All the other tests tell you whether salt is present or not, not the concentration.
I hada bit in the bilges the other day, i immediately identified bilgex, a hint of diesel BUT it was definitely fresh. It was coming from the over pressure valve on the calorifier, the bilgex and diesel was from where I had spilled diesel when I knocked the jug of diesel over whilst changing the fuel filter housing (see this months PBO) The fresh water was contaminated from the surface remnants of my clean up operation
Stu
Stu

 

[Scarboroughsloop]

Spit in the water. In one it disperses and the other it stays together. Can't remember which way round but not difficult to test!

 

[Heckler]

Spit in the water. In one it disperses and the other it stays together. Can't remember which way round but not difficult to test!

When we were just becoming "horny" youths a favourite game was to say "You know how spunk floats in water?"
Then laugh as the recipient nodded in agreement! The inference being of course that they had reached the age where they knew what their right had was for and had learned to use it!
Stu

 

[Seajet]

Try soap; with salt water it's very difficult to produce a lather of foam ( nothing to do with Stu ...).

If you think it may be a water tank, coloured food dye will give an instant clue - it may work for deck leaks too in sufficient amounts to overcome being washed over the side.

As I mentioned on another thread, my uncle used to tell grades of Loctite by tasting them; sadly missed, my LATE uncle !

 

[chriscoreline]

Electrical conductivity is the first thing i would have done if you'd brought a sample into my lab.

But you need a conductivity meter and cell.

Id just taste it other wise

My fathers professor taught him that the best chemical analysis tool was your nose.

He died after smelling concentrated chlorene
My father lost his sence of smell while 'analyising' another vial of somthing vile.