Water purification addatives

What do you all use for water purification addatives in your fresh water tanks? Anything work better than the others? As our cruises get longer and longer, we find ourselves actually drinking and cooking with this water--- it would be nice to be sure it's safe.
Thanks,
Chris

I use a portable water softener when I fill as my marina water has a bit of iron in it. I also drop in these tablets called Aqua Tabs I think. My water tasted great last year. I winterized with the pink stuff this year and hope I can get the taste out. I used to use vodka on my old boat but it only had 1 small tank and we used to have one hell of a commissioning party. The ericson has 2 tanks and more lines to protect and I hate to drink cheap vodka. Small quantities of bleach in your water will remove most impurities resulting from dirty tanks. If the tanks are REALLY dirty you may need new ones...

Soure or Tank?

Are you concerned about the source of the water or the fact that good water has been put in a questionable tank.

If the former, then you would need to use one of the variety of strong water purification chemicals, such as iodine, or a specialized filter which takes out most bacterias etc. Or both in combination.

If you are worried about the tanks, then you need to add a bunch of Chlorine, fill them 3/4 to full with good fresh water, go sailing for about an hour, come back and pump them out.

Also I would recommend a house hold water filter installed after the cleaning for the whole boat supply. The filters do much to imporve taste, and are easy to purchase and easy to install.

Guy

Guy has covered the situation well. (As usual!)

One other piece of the puzzle I would look at is the physical residue still in the tanks from years/decades of green and black stuff going through life cycles. After zapping it with bleach, it might be "pure" enough, but it can still impart taste and color to your water.
We clean out our tanks and towel them dry in late fall when the boat is put away for the winter. The port in my aft tank is too small to get my whole arm into, so I tie some terry cloth on a batten and spooge out the far corners.
We have always used our tank water for all drinking, etc, just like at home.
FWIW, our '88 boat came with 2 Ronco plastic tanks with cleanout ports, but I understand that threaded ports can be added to most tanks. Ya think?

Best,
Loren

Another thing is to check the filter that is probably located near the water pump. It is scary to see the filters on some of the boats that come into the yard.

I have considered using Iodine tablets they sell for back packers. I have used them in my canteen when I climbed Mt. Whitney a few years ago. I think my tank is still pretty sweet, but I do fill it from the tap at my dock. I also still have a water purification pump system that has a hand pump. Works great, but time consuming. I like the idea of installing a filter system, but I am sure the tank will need cleaning from time to time.

I've used bleach in our tanks - we have a 60 gal. bow tank and a 20 gal. fwd. settee tank. Both are stainless steel. I wiped them both down on the inside this summer with clean paper towels, but the baffles prevent getting all the surfaces. I was surprised that a 25-year-old boat would have relatively clean tanks. I think the PO took pretty good care of them during commissioning and decommissioning. It really wasn't particularly gross.

We are thinking about a filter for the system. One of those things we should do before heading too far up the inside passage towards Alaska. The best place to put the filter would be just downstream of the pump and accumulator? That way everything would be filtered with one unit?

Filter location.

After the pump and accumulator, just like you would on a house. I run all of our water through it. Home Depot has one for something under $20.00 for the canister and then get a couple of sediment / Taste filters.

Shock the tanks once and then use the water as you would anywhere. Oh and change the filter about every 6 months or at the begining of the season for you seasonal sailors. I have seen more schmeg in filters than in the tanks.

I will take a photo of mine system tomorrow and post it.

Guy

Our cruising habits are changing, we go out longer, and go more remote. Our water from the tanks used to smell pretty bad (an awful lot like pink stuff!) so I spent some time last season getting rid of most of that. Then I've been using the aqua-tabs as well. We don't drink the water at home without a filter, so that sounds like a great idea. Guy, I'd love to see your set-up!
How much chlorine should I use (approx per gallon of water) for the spring clean-out?

Ted, I was so tired of pink stuff taste this year that I spent the bucks on a case of 2 liter bottles of vodka.

As always, thanks for the input from everyone! I really appreciate it.
Chris

A quick photo

Here is a photo of my setup.

On the very lef tof the photo you can see the handle of one of the ball valves for my tank selection mainfold, then through a strainer into the pump. (God help you if you need to strain the fresh water, but one never knows). Out of the pump into the filter, this is a GE brand, and was under $20.00 at the Orange Place. Inside the filter is a paper/charcol filter for setiment and taste, $16.00 for two again at the evil orange place. Out of the filter feeds the entire boat, Both heads, cockpit shower, water heater, galley, etc.

The filter is slightly skewed as you will see, it gives better access to the filter wrench for chaning it, and since it is under the sink at the back I figured that no one was going to see it anyway.

Final stage of construction will be securing all of the wires and hoses. I have found with major refits that if you save that step till the very last, you only have to do it once.

Guy

I'm with Chris here. How much chlorine for a good cleaning? An amount per gallon of water would be great to know?

Nice setup Guy. I think mine will end up in the starboard laz.

The link below is one recommendation of how much bleach to use. It doesn't take much. Use "fresh" bleach, it loses potency after awhile.

http://www.i4at.org/surv/bleach.htm

The text below is quoted from the above article:

" Ratio of Clorox Bleach to Water for Purification

2 drops of Regular Clorox Bleach per quart of water

8 drops of Regular Clorox Bleach per gallon of water

1/2 teaspoon Regular Clorox Bleach per five gallons of water

If water is cloudy, double the recommended dosages of Clorox Bleach.

(Only use Regular Clorox Bleach (not Fresh Scent or Lemon Fresh). To insure that Clorox Bleach is at its full strength, replace your storage bottle every three months.) "

Whether you drain and refill with regular clorinated water, for taste, or not is up to you. We carry a bottle of Clorox on the boat, just in case we have to get water from a strange source. Backpackers filters (for filling water bottles) or water treatment tablets are things we may carry when we get more adventurous.

It has been raining, snowing, thundering and lightning-ing here in Federal Way for about 40 minutes. Now it is clearing out.

Those are numbers for treating water you plan to drink, right? When you guys talked about cleaning the tank itself how much bleach do you use?

Anybody try a ceramic filter?

Last summer I was staying with a friend at his cabin on a fresh water lake in Ontario, where their only source of fresh water is the lake in front of the cabin. But what he (and apparently everybody else on the lake) did to purify the water was use a ceramic filter in a cartridge. Apparently is it the same technology that backpackers use to remove giardia while in the outback.

The flow wasn't that great, but it was certainly enough for drinking, cooking, and rinsing the dishes. I would think this type of filter would be fantastic aboard your boat to purify tank water. In this case I would plumb it so that there was a separate faucet at the sink from this pump, to be used just for drinking and cooking.

And for those of us who sail in fresh water, I would think this sort of arrangement could even be used with a separate electric pump to purify lake water for drinking. On Lake Huron or Lake Superior it would sure be easier than using a water maker.

Ceramic Filters and Cholrine

We used 1/4 cup chlorox tm for each of our 60 gallon tanks. You would not want to drink the water, but it did a good job of sanatizing them. Fill them 1/2 full or so with water, add the chlorox, and then fill completely, then go sailing, then come back and pump the tanks completely dry, then fill with fresh water, put in the filter and have a great season.

The ceramic filters would be great for the lakes, as they are water purification devices, and remove taste, odor, bacteria, and some viruses even. However they are Expensive it they are good, and have a low flow rate, so you would want to have a filter fo the general use water, and one of the ceremacs for drinking cooking, and final rinse on the dishes. I would put it in series after the primary filtration system to make it last longer.


Tanks -> Pump -> * Primary Filter => Ceramic Filter ->Drinking water outlet etc.

* Primary Filter-> Rest of boat Faucets etc.

Oh watermakers in fresh water are interesting, they work but you have to run them at significant reduced pressure, and there are still official cases of membrane damage after doing so. A better bet would be one of the Ceramic filters like we are discussing here.

Guy


Guy

Hey Ted,

I misread your post about cleaning tanks vs. a bacteria killing dose. When I cleaned my tanks I basically wiped them down with a wet paper towel several times - until the towels came out clean. There was a thin coating (layer sounds too thick) of brown "rust" on the inside surfaces. The welds were rusty here and there. I know there was mold, mildew and who knows what also. Again baffles prevented me from getting every surface.

Shortly after we bought the boat in 2003 we did shock the tanks and drain them. We tend not to drink water directly from the boat tap unless it's been used in cooking or boiled for coffee & tea. We do use it for brushing and washing without any filtering or other treatment and haven't had any ill-effects. Of course we've never had a fill from a questionable source yet.

This thread has been very helpful especially about filtering methods. Even though water sources are gradually getting better, there is considerable comfort value in having backpacker type filters and chemical treatments aboard for those times when you have to take in lake, stream, or well water in remote places. You also have to question whether you should put that water in your built-in tanks or maybe carry some inexpensive collapsable 5 gallon jugs and use them, filtering before use, and then discarding them at the end of the trip.

filter type?

Guy,

What is the part number of filter/housing you used and, more importantly, how did you manage to get hose barb tailpieces into the GE unit? I have been pondering this question for a long time, and we had a quick chat about this a while ago on the list. Footpumps seem to be disqualified because of the lack of pressure but the consensus was that the normal fresh water electric pump delivered enough for a decent flow.

Thanks.

Easy....

Plastic (Nylon fittings from WM) pipe thread to hose barb connections. Will pull the part numbers for you.
I used a tiny bit of pipe dope, on the threaded ends, and standard hose clamps on the hose.

Guy

Thanks

Thanks. I only saw the filters with 1/4" (?) pipe compression fittings. Ok...I'm not a plumber! I wasn't sure how to fit the pipe to hose tail pieces in there. If you have NPT female ports, then this should not be a problem.

The part numbers would help a lot. I am assuming your flow rate is acceptable?

This is the one

GE
Single-Stage Drinking Water Filter System

Model GX1S01C-OEM
Price: $29.97/ea

3/4" NPT fittings if I remember correctly.

You can get it online or from the closest ace hardware near you, if push comes to shove, you can also get it at the evil orange place.

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDU...ID=cchjaddhffhkkmlcgelceffdfgidgln.0&MID=9876

We use the carbon paper filters for sediment and taste, which are these:


GE
Whole House Replacement Carbon Sediment Filter
Price: $11.94/ea

We have never had an issue with flow, using standard 12volt pumps. Lived aboard for over 10 years with one of the filters on each boat, and have installed a number of them on other boats. I don't do long deliveries in boats without water filters, if the crew doesn't drink enough water a lot of medical and emotional issues surface, the best way to keep people drining water is to make sure that it tastes ok.

Guy