cleaning the water tank.

Sneaky Pete

Sneaky Pete

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Hi all. I have a stainless water tank on boat that I believe it is requiring cleaning, getting a taste through tea and coffee. With so many products out there which one should I be using. I thought about aqua clean, puri clean and even Milton sterilising tabs. Any suggestion would be helpful. Thanks.
 
Tranona said:
Milton wil be fine. leave full with the mix for a day or so, pump it out then refill with a weaker solution
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Milton will turn the inside of the tank black, and it will not wash off. This I know from experience.
Whether the black is not good for the water I do not know.
There are better chlorine based tank cleaners which I know are safe.
 
I've used the the American RV (Recreational Vehicle) code. I do it at the start of each season. It's very simple and very cheap.
Flush with 0.5% concentration of bleach.
For me the procedure is simple, the boat has 2 400L water tanks.
1) empty the tanks (mine are usually already empty after 6 months ashore)
2) add 2L of thin bleach, this cost around £1 from the local ASDA. This gives me 0.5% concentration.
3) fill the tank with water.
4) run the taps and showers until I can smell the bleach in the water. This includes the hot water system.
5) close all the taps.
6) leave overnight
7) empty and them refill the tanks 3 times, by which time I can't smell the bleach.
Having said all that both tanks are polypropylene and most of the rest of the system is plastic of some sort. Just the calorifier is SS.
I've been doing this since I bought the boat in 2012, and when I've opened up the system for a repair or modification, there's been no sign of slime or green stuff, and I never had an "off" taste in the water.
 
Ian_Edwards said:
I've used the the American RV (Recreational Vehicle) code. I do it at the start of each season. It's very simple and very cheap.
Flush with 0.5% concentration of bleach.
For me the procedure is simple, the boat has 2 400L water tanks.
1) empty the tanks (mine are usually already empty after 6 months ashore)
2) add 2L of thin bleach, this cost around £1 from the local ASDA. This gives me 0.5% concentration.
3) fill the tank with water.
4) run the taps and showers until I can smell the bleach in the water. This includes the hot water system.
5) close all the taps.
6) leave overnight
7) empty and them refill the tanks 3 times, by which time I can't smell the bleach.
Having said all that both tanks are polypropylene and most of the rest of the system is plastic of some sort. Just the calorifier is SS.
I've been doing this since I bought the boat in 2012, and when I've opened up the system for a repair or modification, there's been no sign of slime or green stuff, and I never had an "off" taste in the water.
Click to expand...
A quick way to kill off the smell and taste of even a large excess of bleach is to add some sodium metabisulphite on first refill. It will mop up residual bleach and leave excess sulphites. You can taste a few parts per million of sulphite but it rapidly reacts with dissolved oxygen to sulphate. You won't taste that, even at a few percent. A tiny excess will therefore become undetectable. It removes the need to empty and fill several times.

N.B. Useful trick of you open cheap wine and it has so much sulphite that it's undrinkable. Pour it into a jug and back into another. It will still be cheap wine but at least it won't taste of sulphite preservative. :D
 
I had this problem for a few years with tanted fresh water no mater how I cleaned the tanks. To keep water tanks clean - as well as the pipes, I use an old American Wagoner's trick of using a silver dollar in the freshwater tanks as they crossed the Great Plains . Well, silver dollars are a bit rare. Howver, you can get some very pure small diameter silver wire these day which is very cheap. When replacing the fresh water pipes on the boat to get rid of the taste, I pulled silver wire through each pipe. I aslo created coils of silver that I put into the fresh water tanks. The final thing I did was, to put a carbon water filter as the last stop before the fresh water tap. Over the last 6-7 years or so I have never had any taste issues.
 
tross said:
I had this problem for a few years with tanted fresh water no mater how I cleaned the tanks. To keep water tanks clean - as well as the pipes, I use an old American Wagoner's trick of using a silver dollar in the freshwater tanks as they crossed the Great Plains . Well, silver dollars are a bit rare. Howver, you can get some very pure small diameter silver wire these day which is very cheap. When replacing the fresh water pipes on the boat to get rid of the taste, I pulled silver wire through each pipe. I aslo created coils of silver that I put into the fresh water tanks. The final thing I did was, to put a carbon water filter as the last stop before the fresh water tap. Over the last 6-7 years or so I have never had any taste issues.
Click to expand...
One of the commercial tank cleaning/purifier products is silver based, silver iodide I think
 
I bought a box of Army Surplus Sterilisation tabs (about 5000) .... basically one tab for a water bottle of river water ... leave for 20 mins ... then its drinkable ... bl***y awful taste - but at least won't kill you !

I empty tank ... then dissolve a handful of tabs in a 5L container ... pour into tank ... then half fill tank ... pull water through to sink until I catch a whiff of tabs ... Stop and leave for a day or so ... longer if boat not needed.

When ready - pump out content through all outlets ... usually by then the tablet smell / taste is near gone ... but the vapours have done their job in the tank as well as the fluid.
A single rinse is all that's needed as the tablets are to create drinking water ...
 
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