Fuel contamination?

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asteven221

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I got some red diesel a while ago in a 20 litre sealed container from HSS the tool hire people. The diesel was used in my boat ages ago and the empty plastic contaner lay in my garage for about 10 months. A couple of weeks ago I filled it up with white diesel from a garage forecourt as I was going cruising where some extra reserve would be handy - just in case.

It wasn't needed for emergency fuel, so at the end of the trip after three weeks, I put it into the main 200 litre tank. At the very end I tipped the container up to get the last of the diesel out and a deep red/pink coloured bit of gunge slipped into the tank before I could stop it.

Does anyone have any idea what the gunge/sludge is and more importantly is it likely to cause any problems? Will it disolve harmlessly in the rest of the fuel, or sit at the bottom of the tank forever, or clog up the prefilter some time soon? Is there any additives that would be worth adding to the fuel to clean it up?

Thanks for any advice.
 
Diesel bug is a black jelly-like substance (or at least it is on my boat) - funnily enough, only one tank is infected. I tried to use some old 2-stroke oil that had been in the bottle for several years. It had pretty much turned to jelly which was the same colour as the oil (green).

It may well be that a higher fraction of the oil had congealed and settled out. Whether it will re-dissolve I don't know. You might try contacting Nigel aka refueller, he is the expert.
 
Diesel bug looks like frogspawn when alive and dies to a blackish powder. What you have sounds like diesel bug stained with the red dye.

There are lots of magic potions on the market which allegedly kill off the bug and even help it through the filters. I use Grotomar which came out top in a comparative test in one of the mags
 
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