Bilge water a stunning color turquoise

[wkearney99]

Just a thought I had my windshield washer reservoir split empty into the bilge

Your's has a separate automotive-like reservoir for just washer fluid? Our washer spray was just fresh water. Which I turned off as the valve for it tended to leak.

Though not all modern windshield washer fluid is dyed blue these days. The Rain X stuff is orange, iirc.

It does raise the question, does the spill have an odor to it? Does it have a texture? Thin? Slippery?

 

[Night Watch]

Blue solution

The bilge water had the viscosity of water, no smell, and did not feel slippery like antifreeze.
My boat doesn’t seem to have a reservoir for window washer fluid so can’t be that.
I did find photos of copper acetate solution that were similar color, and think that acetic acid or vinegar that I used to flush through shower sump may have caused the blue.
I flushed the sump for an hour or so today and sprayed out the bilge with a hose so it’s all freshwater and the pumps have been flushed with fresh water for a few minutes.

 

[Sea Q]

have you cleaned the tops of your battery terminals lately.
i have seen them with copper salts build up .
some boats have a bare copper ribbon thru the boat top to bottom and the bilge as a grounding wire .
i have also seen copper salt build ups on any grounding wires connected to the thru hulls .
just also wondering if you have stray power floating around your bilge area that might be attacking soft metals

 

[Chrisjs]

Copper plus vinegar (per OP) results in blue copper acetate. We intentionally acid-treated (with vinegar) our copper table tops to make blue etching. So, as previous, would look for where/why copper is in contact with acidified bilge water. To get such bright blue color suggests something is being dissolved quite significantly.

 

[Night Watch]

Blue

Thanks for suggestion.
Checked my 4 new house batteries terminals and the 2 big starts but no copper. I’m wondering if the connections to the bilge and float switch in that shower sump is the source as that’s where the cleaning vinegar went. I was caulking shower and so wasn’t flushing freshwater through for nigh on 6 weeks so it sat.
Unfortunately they are under 2 house batteries in a box so it’s a long planning process to find help.
Not seeing anything different in thruhulls or bonding.

 

[Chrisjs]

Does your shower floor have a copper base? Sometimes copper is used to fabricate the shower base before tiling over. Long shot, but what the heck!!

 

[Giggitoni]

Take the blue fluid to an environmental laboratory and have it analyzed for metals. It’s cheap! It’ll answer a lot of questions.

 

[OldDan1943]

Take the blue fluid to an environmental laboratory and have it analyzed for metals. It’s cheap! It’ll answer a lot of questions.

then once the liquid is identified you know where to start looking for the leak and fix it.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. NW. Mr. G's suggestion (post #37) is the most straightforward solution. It will cost a few $$ and the answer may be obvious, in hindsight, but you should know for sure what the liquid is.

 

[Guinness]

My guess is antifreeze. Check your engine. If you are using antifreeze that is that colour then my recommendation is to change it to extended life type. Please check your engine antifreeze

 

[Giggitoni]

My guess is antifreeze. Check your engine. If you are using antifreeze that is that colour then my recommendation is to change it to extended life type. Please check your engine antifreeze

#s 23 and 28 state that the antifreeze is golden or yellow.

 

[Guinness]

Hi.
Where I m we have 2 types.

Redish colour extended life and the
Green turquoise which is the cheapest
And of least quality.

 

[adornato]

the water in our faucets in Maine turned this color when the well water pH went to 6.6.
bad ju ju. erosion of the copper.
had to put in a system to raise the ph
i bet you have some copper erosion for some reason. probably wires

 

[adornato]

just read the old posts about you putting vinegar in the shower. I bet there is a copper drain in the bottom of the shower.
acetic acid in the vinegar is dissolving copper

 

[ORIF]

In your original picture, it looks like there is an horizontal green band running parallel to the bilge water edge and currently out of the water.
Is that green band a bonding wire, something similar, or just a dried out area where the water level had been previously?

I agree with a stray current search starting with the bilge switch. The internals of a bilge switch can corrode out leading to a stray current. Then recheck your wires, terminals and pump motor.

I’ve grown to hate these type of bilge switches and have recently switched to Ultra Safety bilge switches

 

[Exctyengr]

Had the same issue on a Catalina 36 a few years back. It was anti-freeze that leaked from a improperly lighted Breeze clamp on the hot water tank. I tightened it and peace prevailed.

 

[Wayne]

'Lo All,

When confronted with questions like this, for both, types of wood or fluids, I have sent them to the University of Florida and asked them if they can identify them. They always have and reported the results back to me. You might try asking a university in Seattle, if you have not resolved the question. I think they take it as sort of a challenge to themselves.

 

[Lou_tribal]

Ok I will risk it as no one else did it... Is it Blue Curacao?

L

 

[wkearney99]

Ok I will risk it as no one else did it... Is it Blue Curacao?

That's usually got a bit more of a bluish shade than the pictured liquid.

I never like putting any cleaning agents down the drains. Nor do I like ever risking the combination of anything with bleach (else getting chlorine gas).

There are too many materials on a boat that have plastics in them, and most cleaning agents have enough destructive power to damage them. Oh, not a lot, and not right away. But there are plasticizers in them that get degraded over time, leaving the remaining 'plastic' brittle. You see this when the wrong cleaners get used on vinyl seats. Bear in mind that gelcoat and fiberglass resin are also forms of plastic.

 

[Mako]

Looks like the copper sulfate we use to treat our soil. Is the OP by chance farming blueberries in his bilge???

 

[MV Caroline]

Definitely cuprous-oxide. I see a ring of it in the picture. Check for an unbonded or green bronze fitting or thru-hull.

 

[Chrisjs]

Cuprous oxide is green. Cuprous acetate is blue. Looks blue to me.
Still surprised that you can get such a deep color without having very obvious corrosion of copper wire or straps. Figure that even if the ends of copper wire were immersed in vinegar (per OP) that is still an extremely small amount of copper. Assuming the blue solution has all been pumped out, are electrical components in the vicinity still operational? I would still check out the shower basin and the shower drain fittings. Shower drain plumbing could well have the mass of copper or bronze required to generate the intense blue, plus it sounds like that is where the vinegar was sitting for an extended period. Also, quite likely the amount worn away from such fittings s no big deal.

 

[Oldsarge]

Yes a person can even get so used to the smell of diesel,
that you no longer smell it. The only time I smell it is when
I get on the boat after a long absence. After a few days, I no
longer smell it. Airing the boat out helps, but I know it is still
there. If I bring back dirty clothes from the boat and don't wash
them right away I can smell it on the clothes.

 

[Chrisjs]

one more thought...... a leaking lead-acid battery would leak sulphuric acid that would really chew up anything with copper and result in blue copper sulphate solution. Perhaps not vinegar at all??

 

[hmason]

Looks like food coloring to me. There, I said it.

 

[Chrisjs]

Did the OP get a final diagnosis??

 

[BeeJay]

Could be an oxide of copper. Look for hot wires in the bilge water or corroded through hull fittings, etc.

Ski I think you could be correct about copper being the cause. I didn’t believe the resulting colour would remain so uniform so decided to drop a piece of copper tube into some vinegar to see what happened. Completely submerged resulted in zero colour, it just brightened the copper. With some copper protruding the exposed copper coloured up but the liquid still stayed clear. I turned the copper end for end with the now green copper in the vinegar. The result being that the copper in the vinegar again became shiny and the vinegar picked up the bluish green colour. Sad life I have eh

 

[Night Watch]

Blue

Yes I’m sure it was from vinegar I poured down shower that went to shower sump are where there is a bilge pump. It’s under 2 heavy batteries though and beyond my capabilities to move. Everything works still and if that bilge fails the water goes forward into another bilge. I put a hose down shower and into the other bilge and flushed everything out really well. I had put vinegar down, then was going to calk shower, fell and had head staples so couldn’t finish the job for weeks, as it required curling up into shower to reach all the sides. That was long enough for vinegar to react with the copper wiring, but the only thing down there is that bilge pump and float switch so it is going to wait til winter when I can hire someone to help me move the batteries.
The biggest thing was eliminating antifreeze from the list so that was a relief. I’ve stopped using vinegar on my plumbing now!