Biology Experiment?

[Triumph Dave]

I recently bought a 2002 Aero Cub from a government auction.  The camper was used as a rental trailer on an Air Force base.  I have cleaned it up, fixed some minor things on it and am ready to take it out for the fourth of July.  My problem is this:  when I shine a flashlight in the fresh water tank, it looks like a biology experiment.

I used a product called TastePURE Spring Fresh following the instructions to sanitize the tank.  It had little effect.  I have it sitting overnight with a cup of bleach in the full 15 gallon tank.  I ran the water until I smelled bleach coming out of the sinks.

So, is it safe to drink the water when I use the city water input?  I guess the only way to clean out the tank would be to disassemble it or get a new one.  Is that necessary when I don't plan to dry camp?  Any insight you can provide would be great.  Happy fourth!

[deniski]

I don't know how your new aero cub works, but my old popup doesn't use the internal water tank when it's hooked up to city/campground water.  

If I was going to use the tank, and since I couldn't be sure what happened to it in the first place, I'd be replacing it.  Safe drinking water is too important to mess with.

good luck!

denise

[tlhdoc]

Congratulations on your new camper.  You used more bleach than you needed too (bleach works better in small concintrations), but that should do the trick.  You may need to get a water heater cleaner thing(it is a small flexable tube that attaches to your hose so you can spray water with higher presure in the water heater to clean it out) and use it to rinse the inside of the holding tank to loosen the dead gunk in the tank.  It may come out just with filling the tank and draining it.  Did you flush the tank with fresh water and flush the water lines with fresh water?  If not you should do that to get the bleach water out of the water lines.  The longer the bleach is in the water lines the more of
 
Yes your water system is safe to use.

[Triumph Dave]

Thanks!  I flushed out the bleach with fresh water and quite a bit of floaty dead things came out, but not all.  I will try the water heater wand, but may end up replacing the tank.

The water is coming out of the sink lines clear.  Do you think that the lines are safe?  I flushed them out with bleach too.

[tlhdoc]

Thanks! I flushed out the bleach with fresh water and quite a bit of floaty dead things came out, but not all. I will try the water heater wand, but may end up replacing the tank.
 
The water is coming out of the sink lines clear. Do you think that the lines are safe? I flushed them out with bleach too.

You shouldn't have to replace your tank and yes your water lines should be good.  If it was really bad you might want to do a second bleach treatment using just 1/4 cup of bleach.

[deniski]

I agree that cleaning with a bleach solution will generally do the trick.  HOWEVER, if after flushing with bleach I found gross contamination still there, I would still replace the tank.  I recommend this because we have NO IDEA what was in the tank in the first place to cause this problem.  

If I KNEW POSITIVELY that the tank had only had water in it before I got it, then I would try to keep it by cleaning gross stuff off first with a brush or whatever I could find that would reach, then doing the bleach solution disinfection step.  If I felt like it wasn't coming completely clean after that, I would get rid of it and start over.

and yes, generally speaking, running bleach solution through the water lines until you smell it coming out of the tap, and THEN letting it sit overnight that way before flushing it all out SHOULD disinfect adequately.

(This is standard information we give people at the env. health dept I work at who are concerned about bacterial contamination in their onsite wells and plumbing.... of course, they don't usually have the option of getting rid of the well and starting over..... unless it's REALLY BAD).