Fresh Water Tank maintenance

[Traveler 45C]

What are the proper maintenance procedures to keep the Fresh Water tanks clean? My water has started to smell real bad.

Thanks in advance,

Greg

[BEC53]

I've shocked my tank with chlorine bleach for a few days and then run all of that water out and filled with fresh. Seemed to fix the smell and also flushed some black slime out of the lines.

[hATTISFACTION]

I use bleach also when a shock is needed. However if you put in one small capfull on every fill up it should be fine.
Check also to see if anyone has installed a filter in the system. My last hatteras had one and my current Hatteras has two installed. If the filters get filled the taste gets bad quickly.

[skammtoo]

It sounds silly, but put a bottle (large size) of cheap vodka in the tank. It's tasteless but the alcohol keeps all of the organisms that cause taste and odor away.

Also, the crew is always very happy and relaxed.

K >D

[Traveler 45C]

Thanks All.

My tank holds 180 gals. How much bleach should I use to shock and how much on a routine basis?

Greg

[jkp1]

The alcohol in a jug of vodka diluted with 180 gallons of fresh water will provide a great substrate (food) for any bacteria present in your tank. Many folks do not realize that organisms will consume low concentration alcohol as if it were sugar water. If disinfection is your goal, stick with bleach.

I have heard of Vodka used for winterizing, but it would be cheaper to use non-toxic antifreeze at $2.95/g and save the liquor for your drinks.:rollin

[jkp1]

for the initial shock. With tank half full, add bleach, then top off. Confirm there are no filters in line. Turn on a distant faucet and confirm odor of chlorine. It should smell a tad stronger than swimming pool water. If you need to add more, do so. When you get a good whiff of chlorine, run all faucets until you detect it at each location. Top off tank and let sit at least 24 hours. The chlorine needs contact time to do its magic.

Drain tank, you will likely see black crud flush out. This is normal as it's dead bacteria sluffed off from tank sides & lines. If you see lots of black crud, repeat shock. This is needed because the free chlorine concentration will exhaust itself as it reacts with organics. Also, bacteria grows in layers, and the first shock may not get the bottom layer.

Refill tank and add a few ounces of bleach for maintenance.

Now the bad news, your odors probably came from your source water. Iron Sulfide bacteria is common in well water, not harmful to drink, but gives off hydrogen sulfide gas when allowed to sit. If you think you just picked up a tank of buggy water in your travels - you're in luck. If it's present where you dock, you'll need to add chlorine at each top off or install an activated carbon filter. The filter will improve odor & taste, but you may need to change the cartridge frequently.

[Traveler 45C]

Thanks so much.

Greg

[George]

NO, NO, NO, sorry to disagree with all of you with bleach and vodka. StarBrite makes an excellent product for cleaning your fresh water tank, as do many other companies who make it for RV's. You add 1 gallon to 100 gallon tank. Take your boat for a ride in 2 ft chop to mix well, and then drain through all of your plumbing, sinks, shower, head, ice makers, let stand for a day or two, drain completly, refil, drain refil and go. The stuff works incredibally well.

[jkp1]

the product you refer to - Starbrite Aqua Clean contains Quaternary Ammonium as its active ingrediant - a very toxic material. You would need 4 gallons at $15/g of this stuff to flush a 180 gallon tank twice. Then be darn sure you get every bit out of your system because you do not want your family ingesting this stuff. Not to mention what it will do to the environment when pumped overboard. You absolutely would not want to use this as an ongoing preventitive measure.

Compare this to a couple bucks for a gallon of sodium hypochlorite (bleach), a fairly rapid conversion from chlorine to non-toxic chloride and the ability to use this as a preventitive. Good ole' bleach wins from a cost, safety and environmental stand point.

[Traveler 45C]

"Ultra CLOROX liquid bleach can be used to clean tanks in boats or recreational vehicles before using them to store water. Fill the tank with water and add 1 cup Ultra CLOROX liquid bleach for each 50 gallons of water. Leave this solution in the tank for ten minutes and then completely drain it. Rinse the tank with purified water until the taste of Ultra CLOROX liquid bleach is gone.

Unfortunately, we cannot recommend using our Ultra regular CLOROX liquid bleach to chlorinate the water."

Greg

[Jackman]

I personally don't use my fresh water tank for anything other than cleaning and rinsing ect. I take my water in in bottles. I don't think it matters how much you treat one of those tanks...by the time you find out the water is bad you probably already ingested something you shouldn't have and gotten the craps.

Just my opinion. But if you can keep your tank sanitized with all dangerous chemicals rinsed out, (Which is also tough to do) go for it! Its also tough to get really good tasting water from those dockside sources anyhow. Cheaper (no hospital trips ectfrom bad water or chemicals) and safer to use bottled water to drink.

No...I don't work for Evian or Deerpark.

[jkp1]

can not recommend liquid Clorox for drinking water chlorination because it is not FDA approved for that purpose.

Take my word that municipal water treatment plants have used liquid sodium hypochlorite as a drinking water disinfectant for decades.

[George]

OK,
I'm from Missouri, money aside, explain to me why the marine stores have special products such as Starbrite on the shelf, and not MARINE Clorox for fresh water tanks?

[jkp1]

It's ALWAYS about the money. Stores will sell whatever people will buy at the highest price the market will bear.

Clorox does not offer a water treatment chemical because it is not a core market for them. They are doing quite fine mass marketing to the laundry sector. New product launches are risky and there are just are not enough RV folks with stinky tanks to make it worthwhile.

Will the Starbrite product work? Of course it will, but to me its overkill. Formulate a toxic stew, slap on a slick label, charge those "rich" boaters $15/gallon and make a huge profit. This is marketing.

Your challenge is to see through the hype and make informed purchasing decisions.

[jim rosenthal]

..is aluminum. Is it ok to use bleach in an aluminum tank? I like the bleach idea better personally, I have treated patients with burns etc from quaternary ammonium compounds and would rather not use them.

[Trojan]

I use nothing but Peroxide.I put in two bottles and leave it set over night.No need to drain.The peroxide kills the germs and just evaporates.No fuss.50 cents a bottle .You can drain and refill if you like.No taste it works great.A water treatment man who treated our boiler water tolled me about it.I use it in my drinking well twice a year by the gallon.Bill

[jkp1]

Hydrogen Peroxide is probably a great alternative for this purpose. A reactive oxidizer with a rapid half life and NO harmful byproducts. The chemical formula is H2O2. Essentially water with an extra oxygen atom. Peroxide is reactive with organics and degrades to water + oxygen. I have not heard of it used for this purpose - but yes, sounds good and I'd be willing give it a try.

Jim R - a cup or two of bleach per 100 gallons water in an aluminium tank should not be a problem. I had aluminium water tanks on my Wellcraft and used bleach as part of spring commissioning. The only warning is that when you pump Aluminium tanks dry, you may pick up white Aluminium oxide crystals which will clog pumps and faucet aerators. Make sure there is a strainer on the suction side of your pump.

[captwoodyb]

I use colorox bleach on a regular basis on my 53 MY classic built in 1972. I am the second owner, purchased her in 1985 converted to commercial and obtained COI in 1986. I'm looking for a way to draw off the storage tanks at dockside as opposed to the current separate draws . Trying to avoid separate storage thereby eliminating need to top off tanks .....if my tanks would fill automatically from dock side and use the tanks 300 gallons as sort of accumulator tanks my water would be fresh on charter. Anybody have any experience here ?

[jkp1]

Be careful. Thought it may be tempting to use storage tanks as accumulators, I wonder if water tanks were ever designed to handle dockside water pressure. This might be a Tom Slane question.

[Dick]

Just to add my two cents worth, about 25 yrs ago, I chartered a sailboat. Owner used to dump a fifth of wine in the tank to "sweeten the water" as he put it. While out, the whole thing fermented, clogged water filters, etc. and created a real mess, as well as down-time, to repair. Thus, I would never recommend adding alcohol to the FW tanks.

The previous post raises another question. I'm not sure what the on-board water pressure is, but I suspect it's much less than the 60-80psi dock pressure. Thus directly connecting to the dock runs the risk of blowing on-board fittings. If this happens, the water keeps pouring in. At least if it happens when connected to the onboard tank, when the tank runs dry, the water stops. I've been leary of directly connecting unless I'm onboard, for that reason.

One alternative with using the tank as an accumulator might be to reduce the pressure (cheap part, avail at Home Depot). But I have no idea if the tank would hold the pressure. I agree, perhaps a Slane question.

Let us know!

Dick

[Genesis]

My Hatt has a factory-installed pressure regulator for dock water. However, I do not leave it hooked up, because if there ever is a leak, it can sink you.

The tanks most certainly will NOT work as an accumulator without coming apart; they cannot take that kind of internal pressure.

[mike]

It would be somewhat simple to add a float switch into the top of the aft tank in a 53' MY. You could use a float system similar to those used on swamp coolers. Hook it up with a hose connector that is attached to the aft deck area, then reduce it down to a 1/4' copper line to the float in the tank. The difficult part will be adding the float switch, as it may take up the top 3 or 4" in the tank to get the proper range for it to work. But in principle it could be done, alternatively you could find an optical level sensor and use it to trigger an electric solenoid valve to achieve the same result. The key is to keep the water volume down and the pressure low as reported in an earlier post on this subject. I bet you can find all the bits and parts in a good hardware or plumbing store. I think the tank as accumulator approach is a good idea, especially if you can keep the max volume coming in, to always be lower than the ability of the overflow vents ability to handle the uninterrupted incoming flow, hence no adverse pressure on the tanks. mike

[jim rosenthal]

I think if I wanted to ensure clean fresh water in the tanks, I would avoid hooking up to dockside water, as I have known more than one boat to flood and/or sink because of being hooked to city water pressure. Our boats' systems are not designed to withstand city pressure for very long.
What's needed, really, is a "water polishing" system. I have not seen these advertised, but what you need is something that does two things- filters out particulates, and kills germs. The filter is self-explanatory; the germ-killing function might best be done by UV light rather than using chlorine etc which is starting to be implicated in long-term health problems. Like cancer. You would also need a pump to circulate the water past the treatment device.
This would be the best alternative, in that you would always have fresh water, you would avoid "turista" from stuff growing in the tanks, and you would not have to hook up to dockside water routinely. Now, who makes such a device......?

[Passages]

Jim - There are products like this. Home Depo sell a two stage filter for homes which consist of a cartridge filter for particulates and a carbon filter for organics. Not really a disinfection scheme, but close.

[Genesis]

... work well for sterilization, but do nothing for the residual source.

The problem with a "fresh water" system is that it can have colonies of things growing in it. Once that gets started, you have to kill it - somehow.

UV light will do a number on the beasties, but it only works at that instant - you now have dead beasties, but the source has not been addressed.

I'd think that a "2-stage" Home-depot style water filter system (as a pre-filter - mandatory for a UV system, as you must remove any turbidity and have reasonable TDS levels or they don't work well!), along with a UV sterilization system should do the trick. However, that UV system will NOT be cheap, and it consumes (in a "residential" size) ~20 watts whenever it is on.

If you then use a "shock" Chlorine treatment every few months to address anything growing IN the system (and then dump and flush it WELL once you've done so, with the filters removed and the UV system OFF) I'd think you'd be pretty safe.

[Traveler 45C]

I used 1 cup of bleach for each 50 gallons of water in the tank to shock. I let it sit overnight then drained 3 times the next day. Each time I flushed I got more “Black stuff” out of the tank. A lot of “Yellow stuff” came out of the hot water heater.

For regular maintenance I will drain the tank and refill monthly, adding 1oz of bleach for each 50 gallons of water.

Thanks to all for your help.

Greg

[Passages]

I know this is an old thread, but I have an update regarding carbon filtration.

FWIW, I installed an in line carbon canister on Passages. Worked great for 2 months then clogged solid. Now on cannister #2 for about 2 months and that is starting to show low flow. I really thought I'd be able to get a season out of a filter but looks like no. I boat in New England so I would expect warmer climes to need even more frequent filter changes.

[Trojan]

Look at using a UV light from a HOT TUB for killing germs and crud. As I stated early in I use nothing but Peroxide. Bill

[ELECTRA VI]

How much peroxide for a 40 or 60 gallon tank?

[Trojan]

I use about a 1/2 qt. Bill

[SKYCHENEY]

Isn't OxiClean just granulated peroxide? Could you use that?

[Traveler 45C]

My old thread resurrected, wow! :)

Well, the bad smell from the tank that prompted this thread is still gone and the routine maint procedure that I came up with has worked. One oz of bleach/50 gals water added to the tank at fill up. I don’t drink the stuff; it’s only used for showers and dishes.

If I was gonna’ be cruising and needed the tank for drinking, I think adding a filter would be all that I would need to do.

[Passages]

If I was gonna’ be cruising and needed the tank for drinking, I think adding a filter would be all that I would need to do.

Traveler, I think you're right. My HD carbon filter did not have the benefit of clorination. When it was pulled it has a slight slime feel to it. I suspect the bugs were being collected, not killed, at the filter. If I were to start adding a bit of bleach at fill up, I'd likely get less bugs and longer life out of the filter.

An experiment for next year as I haul in a few weeks. This thread may never die.

[Traveler 45C]

An interesting experiment let us know the results…

[Trojan]

Bleach kills people. It remains in the tank. Peroxide evaperates. I will not use bleach any time. Bill

[jim rosenthal]

I agree with this, with the following proviso: you don't want to be ingesting peroxide either. It does break down to water and O2, or free radicals, but you need to give it long enough to do that. I have never found anything that will really keep a FW tank clean and odor-free that isn't bad for drinking. Years ago I had a friend who emptied the FW tank EVERY time he used his boat, period. He never left any water in it. He refilled it every time he took the boat out. Crazy, yes, but he always had clean water in the tank. (this was only a SeaRay 34' so it didn't hold much anyway). I find that if I use the system a lot the water stays fairly clean.
A lot of the threads right now are about the end of boating season. Thank you all for your contributions and hope that you all had a good season and lots of fun with the world's best yachts. Soon all the threads will be about winter maintenance (except for the Florida guys who are immune to winter) etc etc. That, and wistfully thinking about the coming spring :)

[Traveler 45C]

Doc, I’m glad you brought that up. I wouldn’t want to be drinking either of the two, but we are... Isn’t chlorine used the keep the city water systems clean? According to Clorox (their web site), up to 0.6 ppm is the recommended dose for water system cleaning and is safe for consumption. Your thoughts… :confused:

[Genesis]

There are complex issues with any disinfectant and consumption. After all, the point of the disinfectant is to kill beasties! Well, to it, you're a beastie!

Chlorine breaks down and is released into the atmosphere; both of which "de-fang" it over relatively short periods of time in an open system (which a boat water tank is) Peroxide breaks down too.

I wouldn't recommend drinking large quantities of either. You can SMELL Chlorine in water at 5ppm or so, which is the upper limit recommended for maintenance in a swimming pool.

In general, however, while neither is good to ingest, drinking water fouled by biological contamination is worse and can be extremely dangerous.

My rule on board is that I don't drink the water. Use it for showering and such, yes - but unless it has been boiled (or equivalent) in the process of cooking, it does not get ingested.

If I was going to be on a long trip where the water was being turned over constantly, or I was living aboard, then I'd look at this differently. But I'm not.....

[SKYCHENEY]

I think temperature is a big issue here too. You guys in the south can have bacteria grow in your tanks really quickly with tank temps in the 80's. While up here in MI, we have water temps most of the year in the 60's. I do drink water from my tank, but I am constantly turning it over and I cholorinate it once per year to keep it "clean" durring storage.

[Tom Ipock]

One of the biggest sources for junk getting into your water tank is your own dockside water hose. If you have a hose lying on the dock or even connected to your boat, but cutoff at the boat - over a period of even a week in the summer, algae and mildew will build up inside the hose - in the best hose. You can disconnect the hose and turn it on and clumps of algae will flow out as you wiggle the hose around. I know you have all seen it when you start to wash your boat and nozzle clogs - take it off and out comes the junk. If you don't clean your hose before you fill your tank ?????
I put clorox in my hoses about once a month during the summer and soak them good, then rinse. It helps. Finally, I just throw them away about every 6 months.
Tom

[MikeP]

I put a cup of clorox in everytime I refill the water tanks. We use the water for everything except actual drinking. That is, we use it for cooking, making coffee, making ice, etc. But we don't use it to drink a glass of water. I will admit this seems illogical but there it is! The water in our boat has a very faint smell of chlorine pretty much like our city water. During the season, go through the tank (287 gal) in 3 days aboard. We do not make any effort to conserve on the Hatt - I was surprised to find that we can't go any longer on the Hatt with a 287 gal tank than we did on our old boat with a 109 gal tank!

One of our (many) plans for Brigadoon is to install a watermaker and close off the second freshwater tank under the inboard guest room bed. This would do three things: 1 - it would reduce the amount (weight) of freshwater actually carried at any one time. 2 - the water turnover would be greater since there would be consderably less stored water. 3 - there would be an unlimited supply of freshwater.

I'd rather use the tank in the guest room and close off the main (larger) tank but I don't want to do all the work involved with re-plump the fill hose.

We are hoping to get a decent price on a watermaker at the NY boat show in Jan.

[Traveler 45C]

Good idea on cleaning the water hose. I never thought of that…

Mike, your on the Hudson, right? It seems a little scary to me making water out of that stuff… :eek:

[MikeP]

Nope, we're on beautiful Long Island Sound. Home port is Northport, NY.

[Traveler 45C]

Ok, that’s better. On the Hudson, can you imagine?

[Pascal]

i always let the water hose run for a couple of minutes before filling out the tank, there is always a smell when water first runs out of it.

never had an odor issue from any FW tank... never done anythign to them. of course, now that i said that, they will develop a problem...

i understand having concerns about drinking that water, but what do you all do about your ice makers?

[Genesis]

I don't use mine. Its another refer (I lift the bail to shut off the icemaking part)

[scottwvyc]

WOW!!!!!! I tried the 1/2 gallon of bleach in my water tank after reading about it on this forum. It was amazing to see the amount of crap that came out of the taps after letting it sit overnight. Thanks for the tip!

[Passages]

This thread's an oldie but goodie.

This year I installed a new carbon filter in line AND added a few ounces of bleach to the tank 1x/month. The carbon filter lasted the entire season. The only wierd thing is that there was a green stain where standing water was allowed to dry in the shower stall :confused: . It cleaned up ok with tub & tile cleaner but wonder if the bleach was reacting with the brass/copper plumbing?

Anyone else ever see this? Am I overdosing with bleach?

[Tawney1]

"water", "water tanks", "bacteria", "chlorine", "alcohol", "free radicals", "chlorine bleach", "substrate", "iron sulfide", "Starbrite", "hydrogen peroxide", "quaternary ammonium", "aluminium", "sodium hypochlorite", "aluminium oxide crystals", "UV light", "FDA", "turbidity", "algae", "TDS levels", "water polishing"...,

WHAT A SITE! I love it!

[Freebird]

It sounds silly, but put a bottle (large size) of cheap vodka in the tank. It's tasteless but the alcohol keeps all of the organisms that cause taste and odor away.

Also, the crew is always very happy and relaxed.

K >D

Wow, that has to be alchohol abuse in the first degree unless you mix in some cranberry and grapefruit! Sound like a multi-purpose idea that should work well especially if you throw a big "cleansing" party and invite me!

Seriously, I had never heard of that, but it should certainly work in the manner you described. The water on Freebird is kind of skunky as well.
The PO had sulphur water at his dock. I grew up with this smelly stuff and I knew immediately what it was. I've exchanged the water in the tanks a couple of times now with the dock water that goes through a softener. It still has a little smell to it though.

How about a mixed drink of vodka and chlorine? That's bound to kill anything that it doesn't make happy!

Oh yeah, welcome back to the forum Greg! ;) What's up with the "guest" title? There aren't two of you are there?

PS Wait a minute, what's up with all the "guest" titles? I noticed even Dr. Jim is one too. Did I miss something when I was in time out?

[Maynard Rupp]

Hey Freebird...I went backwards to look at the "guest" thing for Jim Rosenthal. What I found instead is a title of "Super Moderator". How do you rate that lofty title, Jim. I thought our three moderators were Jim, Pascal, and Karl. Now I find Karl is the "poobah" and the only real moderator is Pascal. I can clearly see that Jim stepped to the top of his class, But where does a "poobah" fit in the food chain?

[Angela]

Genesis has been the "PoohBah" since I've been here. That's not a new title for him. I'm pretty sure that title ranks at top of the food chain, well...almost at the top..."administrator" is the top.

I read somewhere, some time back, when the "super" moderator topic came up, and as I recall, I think Pascal said his title turned into "super" moderator, but it was a setting he could change which he did. I think Jim mentioned that he never bothered with it. Well, that's my recollection, anyway (correct me if I'm wrong). :)

[SKYCHENEY]

The really old threads from the old site were transfered to the new site. When that happened of titles were changed to "guest".

[Freebird]

I'm glad you guys clarified the "guest" thing. I was afraid you guys had been the victims of mad zappers and lost your senior status like I almost did!

Oh yeah, I'm paying attention to all that's been said about smelly tank water. While the vodka thing may not be the answer, it will make you forget about the question or the problem for that matter!

[Boss Lady]

Fresh water tanks can be a bear to keep the water potable. I am no chemist, but since municipal water systems use chlorine and the military uses bleach to sanitize potable water during deployments, and my personal experience is bleach is the most economical and effective treatment us mere mortals can use without a degree in chemistry or biology. The municipals use the industrial version of chlorox, very concentrated and dangerous for the untrained, we have standard bleach, a watered down version that is relatively safe to handle. We have been using bleach/water mix in a spray bottle for years to disinfect the kitchen, bath, boat, RV, Frig, coolers, etc. Way more effective than anything else, and cheap! If you are concerned about the after effects of chlorine you can add a charcoal filter to get rid of it and a ton of other nasty chemicals that exist in water. I am familiar with the compressed carbon filters that mechanically remove/block things larger than bacteria, and the carbon attacts chemicals and vapors. If you get the right one it does both. Most of the stuff at Lowes/HD is junk, fiber filters and loose carbon, while they do remove stuff like debris and some chemicals are nothing compared to the compressed carbon filters. There also some purely mechanical filters that use a silver impregnated ceramic filter to filter bacteria, but they do nothing else for water quality. The compressed carbon filter is relatively inexpensive, last for several thousand gallons, are easy to replace. The fresh water Reverse Osmosis filters are complex and expensive and can be problematic and take up too much space. Fresh water tanks are science experiments and you must shock treat them and flush to maintain a safe supply. For those who travel to different marinas you can assemble a simple rig that would keep your clean tank, clean, by using a compressed carbon filter in line with your water hose. You can fill you holding tank with filtered water, and if you hook up simply leave it inline. The easiest way is to keep the junk out to begin with, then you should only have to treat your tank at the beginning of each season. Your under the counter filter will ensure that no nasties get through in between shock treatments. Happy boating. :D

[Freebird]

Chris, your mailbox is full, check your e-mails.

[Genesis]

Unless you're living on the boat or turning the tank water over every few days don't drink the water in the tank.

That's the short version. If you insist on using it to do things like make ice cubes invest in GOOD filtration. You do not want to know what kinds of nasty bugs can get going in a "fresh" water tank in short order - they will make you VERY ill.

My rule on Gigabite, since we did not live aboard her and she often sat for a week or two at a time between uses was that nobody drank the water out of the taps. Shower in it, yes. Flush the head, yes. Drink? Nope - we had bottled/canned beverages for that purpose, and for that very reason.

[Eddieclemons]

Great thread for the past.

How long is too long to leave a few cups of bleach in the tanks? I will be be away for a week or so, should I get it out today before I leave?

Thanks

[Westfield 11]

We left ours in overnight the last time with no ill effects. We do it every other year. Afterwards I fill and drain the tanks three times to flush.

[Eddieclemons]

What's the fastest way to dump the water? Does the pump need a rest during the dump?

[SKYCHENEY]

Just open as many faucets as possible and let it pump

[jmooney]

I filter the water coming into the boat , but not with a charcoal filter , as I want chlorinated water in the tank . As the water is pumped out of the tank , it is filtered twice , the last being a charcoal filter .

[metama]

What's the fastest way to dump the water? Does the pump need a rest during the dump?

Just invite my family over. Tank will be empty in no time!

[metama]

Charcoal filters pull out most Chlorine. That is why water makers have a carbon filter on the fresh water rinse line as chlorine isn't good for membranes.

We don't drink the water from the tank. When we use the water maker we have a valve that flips over to a long tube that we fill water bottles with.

The rest run through 2 filters and UV.
It is amazing how many particles get added in the copper lines between the supply filter and the faucet.