DepSol
New member
Not all creatures we share the world with have the same physiology. There are microbes, which we will refer to as bugs, which can and do feed off of the hydrocarbons in your fuel. Like all micro-organisms they can multiply with astonishing speed. These bugs can double their population every half-hour or even faster.
Fuel bugs are real. The most common types found in petroleum products are Cladosporium Resinae and Pseudomonas Aeruginosa. This class of fuel eating microbes is known in the industry as Hydrocarbon Utilizing Microorganisms or H.U.M. bugs. There is nothing amusing about them.
Once H.U.M. bugs enter a fuel system and find a place to live (more about that later) they multiply with astonishing speed. As the bugs grow in number their bodies begin to take up space. They also produce waste products that float around in the fuel around them. The waste products are of course carbon molecules that can be abrasive. H.U.M. bugs are easy to spot as they quickly form what is called sludge, algae, or dark pasty crud. They can eat almost anything petroleum or hydrocarbon based: fuel, gaskets, seals, hoses and more!
If you would like to see some H.U.M. bugs look at the inside of a fuel tank. Look at your fuel filters. You may see H.U.M. bugs and their waste products. If so they need to be removed from your fuel. They will gum up and block your filter and then stall out your engine. The bugs and waste that do pass through your filter acts upon your engine just like normal particulate matter: they sand blast away at your engine's internals. These smaller particles cause meaningful and absolutely avoidable wear. Your fuel will also not burn as well which causes performance and fuel economy to suffer.
The cure for H.U.M. bugs is two-fold. Remove the ones you already have from your fuel system and do not give them a place to live.
H.U.M. bugs enter your fuel system through several means. When you take on fuel you are picking up bugs with your fresh load of fuel. Yes, the refining process pasteurizes fuel, but as it travels to where you bought it fuel is exposed to contaminated tanks, trucks, and fuel pipelines. Even if perfectly sterile fuel is pumped into your tanks the fuel is not safe yet. Bugs will enter your tanks and get to your fuel through your tank vents, water that drips into your tanks, the filter you just installed on your engine, or any other means by which a single microbe can contact your fuel.
H.U.M. bugs like all creatures need a place to live. H.U.M. bugs live and breed on the boundary layer where the water in your tanks meets your fuel. A few gallons of water can provide hundreds or even thousands of square feet of surface area capable of sustaining huge populations! Bugs CANNOT live in pure fuel. They must live in water. Take away the water in your fuel system and you will leave them with no place to live. Sounds too simple but it is true. Without water the bugs cannot live and multiply. Why do you think that the nefarious H.U.M. bug has not yet eaten the oil coming out of the oil wells after millions of years? NO WATER!
Dom
I just want my boat back in the water ;-(
Fuel bugs are real. The most common types found in petroleum products are Cladosporium Resinae and Pseudomonas Aeruginosa. This class of fuel eating microbes is known in the industry as Hydrocarbon Utilizing Microorganisms or H.U.M. bugs. There is nothing amusing about them.
Once H.U.M. bugs enter a fuel system and find a place to live (more about that later) they multiply with astonishing speed. As the bugs grow in number their bodies begin to take up space. They also produce waste products that float around in the fuel around them. The waste products are of course carbon molecules that can be abrasive. H.U.M. bugs are easy to spot as they quickly form what is called sludge, algae, or dark pasty crud. They can eat almost anything petroleum or hydrocarbon based: fuel, gaskets, seals, hoses and more!
If you would like to see some H.U.M. bugs look at the inside of a fuel tank. Look at your fuel filters. You may see H.U.M. bugs and their waste products. If so they need to be removed from your fuel. They will gum up and block your filter and then stall out your engine. The bugs and waste that do pass through your filter acts upon your engine just like normal particulate matter: they sand blast away at your engine's internals. These smaller particles cause meaningful and absolutely avoidable wear. Your fuel will also not burn as well which causes performance and fuel economy to suffer.
The cure for H.U.M. bugs is two-fold. Remove the ones you already have from your fuel system and do not give them a place to live.
H.U.M. bugs enter your fuel system through several means. When you take on fuel you are picking up bugs with your fresh load of fuel. Yes, the refining process pasteurizes fuel, but as it travels to where you bought it fuel is exposed to contaminated tanks, trucks, and fuel pipelines. Even if perfectly sterile fuel is pumped into your tanks the fuel is not safe yet. Bugs will enter your tanks and get to your fuel through your tank vents, water that drips into your tanks, the filter you just installed on your engine, or any other means by which a single microbe can contact your fuel.
H.U.M. bugs like all creatures need a place to live. H.U.M. bugs live and breed on the boundary layer where the water in your tanks meets your fuel. A few gallons of water can provide hundreds or even thousands of square feet of surface area capable of sustaining huge populations! Bugs CANNOT live in pure fuel. They must live in water. Take away the water in your fuel system and you will leave them with no place to live. Sounds too simple but it is true. Without water the bugs cannot live and multiply. Why do you think that the nefarious H.U.M. bug has not yet eaten the oil coming out of the oil wells after millions of years? NO WATER!
Dom
I just want my boat back in the water ;-(
