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Old 07-11-2021, 05:46 PM   #7
Marco Flamingo
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City: Dewatto
Vessel Name: CHiTON
Vessel Model: Tung Hwa Clipper 30
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,096
Quote:
Originally Posted by JDCAVE View Post
I used 4 gallons of bleach to 350 gallons of tankage for 4 hours. That’s on the strong side. You need to run it through all the taps but not the hot water tank.
I also disinfected on the strong side. 1/2 gallon per 60 gallon tanks. Too much. Dead is dead. After that it's just time consuming to get rid of the chlorine smell. I think I could have done it with 1 cup per tank and left overnight. I went through every faucet and let is sit. Then, I used the drain plugs on my tanks which went right into the bilge. My bilge pump is way faster and more robust than the pressure water pump. Plus, it cleaned out the bilge.

I ran it through my hot water tank. That was kind of the canary in the coal mine for determining when the tanks were sufficiently rinsed out. Even a tiny concentration of bleach in hot water is obvious. I thought I was done rinsing until I sent water through the HW heater.

Run the solution through everything, including the vent. Slow the tank fill way down so that you can run a trickle out of the vent for several minutes. Our vents are out the transom and tend to get mud wasp nests in them. I don't know how hygenic wasp homes are, but I gave them a good shot of the solution to clean them out (one required a poke with a wire). All subsequent tank fills get the slow down to make sure the vent is running clean.

We drink our tank water (having filled on city water at our marina). We have a little Britta filter pitcher that is generally used, but mostly because it is small enough to fit in the fidge door so that we have cold drinking water. We also have bottled water onboard, but save that for taking to the flying bridge or on dinghy adventures.
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