Spare fuel cans

zoidberg

zoidberg

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This is the time that most 'reminders' are posted re the risk of diesel bug growing over the winter and suggesting preventive measures. It occurred that spare fuel containers are also worthy of a moment's attention, for much the same reason.

I'm aware that various 'diesel bugs' grow on the water/fuel interface and that there's likely a smaller chance of water accumulating in a closed can, but some can get in during refilling - perhaps several times a year. If cans are not cleaned out/flushed now and then, the bugs' corpses and live cultures can accumulate, to be passed into the main engine fuel tank unnoticed.

Belt and braces....?
 
I'm not a diesel bug expert by any means, but I would hazard a guess that diesel bug, as well as needing a diesel/water interface, also needs oxygen. As long as your fuel containers are full and properly sealed, both of which should be the case, then I doubt whether there will ever be enough oxygen to sustain bugs life, so to speak. :)

Richard
 
RichardS said:
I'm not a diesel bug expert by any means, but I would hazard a guess that diesel bug, as well as needing a diesel/water interface, also needs oxygen. As long as your fuel containers are full and properly sealed, both of which should be the case, then I doubt whether there will ever be enough oxygen to sustain bugs life, so to speak. :)
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Doesn't a diesel/water interface rather exclude the possibility of oxygen?
 
macd said:
If that were the case, why would fish have bothered to evolve gills? There's usually plenty of dissolved oxygen in water (and, since we're talking about winter, the colder the water, the more oxygen it can carry).
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So Richard's theory that having a full sealed can prevents issues doesn't hold water? (see what I did there?)
 
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zoidberg said:
This is the time that most 'reminders' are posted re the risk of diesel bug growing over the winter and suggesting preventive measures. It occurred that spare fuel containers are also worthy of a moment's attention, for much the same reason.

I'm aware that various 'diesel bugs' grow on the water/fuel interface and that there's likely a smaller chance of water accumulating in a closed can, but some can get in during refilling - perhaps several times a year. If cans are not cleaned out/flushed now and then, the bugs' corpses and live cultures can accumulate, to be passed into the main engine fuel tank unnoticed.

Belt and braces....?
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When I drain the boat fuel tank it goes in the car, but I use the white stuff.
 
pvb said:
So Richard's theory that having a full sealed can prevents issues doesn't hold water? (see what I did there?)
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There will be a tiny amount of oxygen dissolved in the fuel and any water present but that will very quickly be consumed. After that, all intelligent life, as we know it, and some as we don't know it, ceases. :(

Obviously that doesn't happen in the fuel tanks as the oxygen is replaced as fast as it is consumed.

Richard
 
RichardS said:
There will be a tiny amount of oxygen dissolved in the fuel and any water present but that will very quickly be consumed. After that, all intelligent life, as we know it, and some as we don't know it, ceases. :(

Obviously that doesn't happen in the fuel tanks as the oxygen is replaced as fast as it is consumed.
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So you're saying the oxygen in the top of a fuel tank burrows its way through the whole depth of the diesel to reach the diesel/water interface?
 
RichardS said:
I'm not a diesel bug expert by any means, but I would hazard a guess that diesel bug, as well as needing a diesel/water interface, also needs oxygen. As long as your fuel containers are full and properly sealed, both of which should be the case, then I doubt whether there will ever be enough oxygen to sustain bugs life, so to speak. :)

Richard
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No, oxygen is only necessary to grow aerobic bacteria. Obligate anaerobic and facultative anaerobic bacteria (and fungi) grow in the absence of oxygen. The facultative anaerobes deplete the tiny amount of oxygen, and so promote the growth of anaerobic bacteria. B.T.W. those are the ones who process sulphates and give off the rotten-egg 'pong' in heads tubing.
 
thalassa said:
No, oxygen is only necessary to grow aerobic bacteria. Obligate anaerobic and facultative anaerobic bacteria (and fungi) grow in the absence of oxygen. The facultative anaerobes deplete the tiny amount of oxygen, and so promote the growth of anaerobic bacteria. B.T.W. those are the ones who process sulphates and give off the rotten-egg 'pong' in heads tubing.
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You're trying to confuse the thread with facts, aren't you? :rolleyes:
 
pvb said:
You're trying to confuse the thread with facts, aren't you? :rolleyes:
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I was just hazarding a guess, as I said, as I've never heard of diesel bug growing in cans. Some of us are bright enough to develop a hypothesis in order to try and advance the discussion. Others are only bright enough to resort to unhelpful sarcasm. :encouragement:

First hit on Google: https://www.marship.eu/what-is-diesel-bug

"Your diesel fuel tank provides the perfect environment for diesel bug to thrive. Your fuel tanks provide water in which it lives and breeds, carbon in the fuel on which it feeds and oxygen and sulphur for respiration together with trace elements for growth."

;)

Richard
 
RichardS said:
I was just hazarding a guess, as I said, as I've never heard of diesel bug growing in cans. Some of us are bright enough to develop a hypothesis in order to try and advance the discussion. Others are only bright enough to resort to unhelpful sarcasm. :encouragement:

First hit on Google: https://www.marship.eu/what-is-diesel-bug

"Your diesel fuel tank provides the perfect environment for diesel bug to thrive. Your fuel tanks provide water in which it lives and breeds, carbon in the fuel on which it feeds and oxygen and sulphur for respiration together with trace elements for growth."
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My reply was to thalassa, not to you.

RichardS said:
I'm not a diesel bug expert by any means
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I think that's correct.
 
RichardS said:
First hit on Google: https://www.marship.eu/what-is-diesel-bug

"Your diesel fuel tank provides the perfect environment for diesel bug to thrive. Your fuel tanks provide water in which it lives and breeds, carbon in the fuel on which it feeds and oxygen and sulphur for respiration together with trace elements for growth."

Richard
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Should one believe all one reads on the internet?

As for advancing the discussion, this veteran troll is fascinated by what comes to the surface when he throws a metaphoric stone into the similar still pond.
It is oft-times instructive and entertaining at the same time..... ;)
 
pvb said:
My reply was to thalassa, not to you.

I think that's correct.
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It's an open forum. When you make a sarcastic reference to a suggestion made by me when I was just trying to be helpful, I have a perfect right to call you out. ;)

This is PBO. If you want to engage in personal insults, let's pop on over to The Lounge. :encouragement:

Richard
 
RichardS said:
It's an open forum. When you make a sarcastic reference to a suggestion made by me when I was just trying to be helpful, I have a perfect right to call you out. ;)

This is PBO. If you want to engage in personal insults, let's pop on over to The Lounge. :encouragement:
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Don't be childish!:rolleyes:
 
RichardS said:
Thought so. :encouragement:

Now, please stop the infantile sarcasm on what is supposed to be a technical forum as it just makes you look needy. ;)

Richard
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Richard, if you were truly "just trying to be helpful", you wouldn't post advice on something you admit you don't know much about. Unless, of course, you're just trying to get your post count up.
 
This is from the PBO website article on diesel bug treatments:

"Diesel bug thrives at the interface between fuel and water – ie just off the bottom of the tank, where the micro-organisms form colonies. In this cosy environment they break down the alkanes in the fuel using oxygen from the water, precipitating a black sludge to the bottom of the tank as they do so."

https://www.pbo.co.uk/gear/12-diesel-bug-treatments-tested-43353

Richard
 
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