Diesel Bug?

wofforduk

wofforduk

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Hi All. Sorry if this subject has been done to death, but I just wanted to confirm that this is the bug i have in the pictures attached? I know i had a lot of water in there, the bottle was from draining the separating filter. If so, anyone had much success with the treatments? Its annoying as I had fully clean aly tanks from my conversion from petrol to diesel last year..

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yes I think you have - usual drill pick a medicine and kill it. More worryingly how did all the water get in?
have a look on the Millars Oil website. They do a good bug killer. If you email them your picture they will tell you exactly what you have got and how to shift it. (Not connected just had excellent help from them in the past)
 
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Cool thanks mate ill give them a shout tomorrow! Not 100% sure really. Could have been the fuel I initially put in, or filler seal wasnt great. replacing the filler to be on the safe side anyway! I wonder if id get much more performance this season with new filters!
 
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seems to be a lot of water in that sample as well. Therein may lie the cause.



Any chance you can reduce the size of the pics please ? It would make it so much easier to see them and to reply. Thanks.
 
Yeah what I thought, maybe it was the sheer amount of water in there. lucky the filter caught it.. I guess i cant do much about the condensation in the tank, but new deck filler ordered!
 
Marine 16 and Grotmar seem to do well in tests. I think not only do they kill it but somehow help dissolve it a bit so it might pass through filters and get burned off. See post by Hurricane.. from memory Marine 16 told him what to do.
 
thanks for dealing with the pics.


One far out suggestion for the water source. I once came across a boat where the breather pipe ended in an upward facing direction under a metal air inlet to the engine room. The metal frame condensed water which, cruelly, dripped directly into the tank.


The boat was a custom built wooden motor sailer, owned by a smart company lawyer. Much fun and many letters later the problem was fixed, and even the two big tanks of diesel were paid for by the builder.
 
Just had a look at Marine 16, who have had a test from PBO, which is here if anyone is interested! I will probably conduct my own little experiment with my bottle of diesel/water/gunge mix by adding a bit, and see if it does get rid of the stuff after a week or so.

About the ingress of water, ill double check my breather, although filler is very suspect at this time. sounds like a pretty big fopar on their side tho, especially with a lawyer client...! Would have thought they would have seen that one coming but hey its not a perfect world..

Will get some Marine 16 and give it a bash :) who knows, there may be a few extra RPM in it, as that filter looked pretty gooed up! :)
 
in your bottle experiment if the biocide works the bugs growing on the interface will sink to the bottom. a mild dose of household bleach will also kill them off.

its all about house keeping, keep your tank water free!
 
that doesnt look like diesel bug to me but I may be wrong. I had it in my last boat and it was more like a black waxy substance which clogged the filters. In my opinion yours looks like water obviously plus contaminent which is probably getting in with the water ?
 
From reading up about it, I have ordered their bug treatment, not sure exactly what its called but its expensive enough to hopefully work! I think the plan is to administer the treatment and let it work for a week or two, then get an oil extracter and suck the **** out of the tank through the gauge sender hole. i bet bleach would, but not sure what it would do to the rest of the running gear? learning pretty quick about this, really did not see this happening so quickly! Plan is to have pre measured treatments done and each tank fill up - bung one in. 2 second job.

thinking about it, I was lucky that the filter didn't clog completely last season or id have been stuffed. so am ordering a spare filter as well !! :D
 
You cannot stop water from getting into fuel, it arrives with an amount of water from the refinery and continues to gain more as time goes on for various reasons. There is only one product on the market that actually removes water from fuel, killing any diesel bug present and that is a product called Aquasolve from a company called Coval Aquasolve Ltd. All the other products actually only split the water and the fuel, they do not remove the water completely. Have a look at their website for more detailed information. It is an amazing product!
 
Juliell said:
You cannot stop water from getting into fuel, it arrives with an amount of water from the refinery and continues to gain more as time goes on for various reasons. There is only one product on the market that actually removes water from fuel, killing any diesel bug present and that is a product called Aquasolve from a company called Coval Aquasolve Ltd. All the other products actually only split the water and the fuel, they do not remove the water completely. Have a look at their website for more detailed information. It is an amazing product!
Click to expand...

When the Aquasolve 'remove the water' completely what does it do with it?
 
It breaks it down at molecular level and it just disappears. I have seen the experiments and it is amazing. There is a video on the website showing the experiment. Because of this, if used regularly, you will never get water in the fuel and also you will never get Diesel Bug. There are quite a few chandlers starting to stock this product and you only have to use a 1:1000 ratio.
 
Its Diesel bug, look at the colour of the water, the fuel above is cloudy, the boundary layer is full of growth and the pre filter is gunked up.

Firstly you need to shock dose the fuel with a good biocide like Grotamar 82 and leave for a few days, pre mix it with half a can of diesel and shake it up first so it mixes.

Your profile does not say what type of boat, do you have drains at the bottom of your fuel tanks, or sumps and stripping lines?

That is a lot of water to pull from a pre-filter is it a long time in engine running hours since you last checked the pre-filters or did this arrive in the filter on a short trip, if the latter it would indicate that you have a considerable amount in the tank.

You need to get the water out of your fuel tanks, if you have not got sumps and drains or stripping lines consider having it filtered by a contractor through a remote high flow filtration unit to remove the water and filter the fuel ( leave it a week or so after treating with Grotamar 82 to allow it to kill off the bug and let it fall from the tank sides.

Before you go anywhere with the boat, make sure you have clean pre filters fitted and say four sets of spare filter elements on board, if you have a problem at sea about all you can do is drain the pre filter and change the element.

Every time you fuel up dose with Grotamar 82 at the normal prophylactic dose, in future check your pre filter bowls after every trip and inspect the element because dead residue will continue to come through for some time.

Check the O rings on the fuel tank fillers as piers says and if not in perfect condition change them.
 
Looks like a bit of bug to me too. Lot of water though.

There's a good chance that you'll have a fair bit of water settled out at the bottom of the tank. You need to drain that somehow. Even get a pipe in and pump out the mixture of fuel and water from the lower levels into something that can let it settle out.

Additives can be ok if you've got a bit of dissolved water and a bit of bug, but if you've water sloshing about on the bottom of the tank it's going to be paradise for the diesel bug. And if you get caught in a bit of rough weather it's going to be mixed with your diesel and an awful lot of water will get into your filters pretty quickly.
 
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