What do you use in you'r water tank

nickysc

nickysc

New Member
Jul 1, 2007
581
Springfield SC
Boat Info
270se sundancer
Engines
7.4mpi w/BravoIII
We have a 25gl fresh water tank, we do not drink this water, but use it for everything else. I've been buying this water treatment (chlorene product) from rv, and marine stores, and adding it everytime I put water in tank. I was wondering what everyone else did. Thanks Nicky
 
I think the key is to make sure you use the water a lot and don't let it sit in there. When we are on the boat, we go through a tank of water (at least) every day. That's 120 g I believe. We probably pumped over 4000 gallons of water through the system in July alone.

One year, I dumped a little bleach in the system and filled it up but it took a week to get the bleach smell out... wasn't worth it IMO. I probably put too much bleach in though as my wife took a shower and her hair turned blond and she turned stupid.
 
Last edited:
We use the water a lot too. The chlorine level in the tap water from our source seems to do just fine. I did splurge and buy a "white" hose so we wouldn't contaminate it ourselves.
 
Im with Gary,
I dont add anyting to the water. I try and not let it sit and use it as often as possible.

Rob
 
Thanks for the replys, this conferms my thoughts, if you are useing the boat on a regular basis, no need to add anything.I definatly wont add chlorox be fore wife takes a shower,Stupid women and boats don't mix.
 
I sanitize it at the beginning of the season and empty it each weekend. I fill it before we head out and drink out of it as well. As Gary said, use it! I've not experienced nay prebmols?

As for the stupid women and boats don't mix, well let's say that could work to your advantage! Oh to be young and single again. Wait, I just wish I was single again!
 
We cycle our water every week and use no chemicals except in the spring time when the system is commissioned. We are never hooked up to dock water and use tank water for our ice maker and everything else.
 
The only time we add anything to the water is if it has been sitting and it has an oder to it. I add 1 cap full of bleach, and then flush all taps. usually empty 1 tank and then refill and all is well. We run through ours so fast we don't need to do it often.
 
Same here. I'll add a very small amount of bleach to the first tank of the season and then turn on all taps and run the entire tank out, then refill and drain one more tank for a "rinse" cycle, and then just use regular tap water for the entire season. The chlorine in the tap water seems to do just fine as long as we're consistently using the water, and we drink it too.

I'b naut seemed nuhtin rong wit dringin it atal yert.
 
We do an ounce of bleach every other fill up. I also added a GE household charcoal filter in between the water source and the fill up hose. But we are on a mooring and get our water fill up from 150' of garden hose running from the house down to our dock. Since we can only put the boat on the dock for a couple hours either side of high tide, water tends to stay longer in the tank than we would prefer.

Henry
 
We use the tank water often. So, we add half a cup of mouthwash (scope...) everytime we fill it. Seem to work fine, no odors. Also, have not had any dental work in five years... but the admiral smells funny...

R.Blatter
310 Sundancer 2001
Bravo III
 
rblatter said:
We use the tank water often. So, we add half a cup of mouthwash (scope...) everytime we fill it. Seem to work fine, no odors. Also, have not had any dental work in five years... but the admiral smells funny...

R.Blatter
310 Sundancer 2001
Bravo III
Click to expand...

Mouth wash will crystalize and be sticky... it has lots of sugar and other crap in it that you don't want in your water tank..

My 2 cents.
 
I don't put any additive in the tank but I do fill the tank through a whole house filter.
 
Moutwash ingredients: water, alcohol, sodium, chloride (I have shortened some names here). The chloride and alcohol seem to prevent bacteria from forming. It works in fine in small quantities, half a cap for a full tank. And good breath...

R.Blatter
310 Sundancer 2001
Bravo III
 
I've had bad experiences relying only on frequent replenishment of tank water and city additives.

After letting the water sit for never more than 5 days at a time, I looked down the filler hose to find growth (black spots) on the wall of the hose! yeeee-uck!

From then on, I've used a ceramic/charcoal filter and a regular regimen of treating the system with the bleaching process described by Peggy Hall. (it used to be on the SeaRay website as well. it's easily found w/ a google search)

When it's time to empty the system, I hook the dock hoses up to boat (anchor washdown) and let the bleach water run through them as well.

Co-incidentally, I did it last wkd. All signs of bleach were gone the next day. (the icemaker is possible exception. I throw away several buckets of ice just to make sure) The key to flushing the bleach out is making sure to empty the tank as much possible before diluting it with more water.

Aside from peace of mind and clean water, that mild treatment is just enough to kill the growth that tends to collect in the corners of the shower, the shower head, sumps, the sink drains etc.

We had an "algae bloom" 2 years ago that somehow overwhelmed the local water treatment systems. The city water was disgusting brown. I lost a filter to it, but I was happy to buy a new element knowing that it sacrificed itself to prevent 100 gallons of sludge from going into the fresh water tank.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,247
Messages
1,429,263
Members
61,128
Latest member
greenworld
Back
Top