What can I use to clean a steel water tank?

[dave_2A_]

I was going to bung a big bottlle of Miltons in and fill up the tank & leave it for a couple of days, but someones pointed out that you're not supposed to use Miltons on metal. Same question applies to the black water tank.

[NB Alnwick]

I was going to bung a big bottlle of Miltons in and fill up the tank & leave it for a couple of days, but someones pointed out that you're not supposed to use Miltons on metal. Same question applies to the black water tank.

 

Plenty of fresh tap water - flushed through and then left before refilling and flushing through again. Is usually sufficient. There are more than sufficient chemicals in tap water these days to clean it out!

 

If the water has been allowed to get a bit stale and your pipework has a bit of slime in it, try scrounging some beer line cleaner from your local pub landlord and leave it in the pipes before finally flushing it with clean tap water.

[dave_2A_]

The simplicity appeals! Thanks.

[RobinJ]

I was going to bung a big bottlle of Miltons in and fill up the tank & leave it for a couple of days, but someones pointed out that you're not supposed to use Miltons on metal. Same question applies to the black water tank.

Depends whether your talking about algae or rust?

One would hope its not bare metal!

[chris w]

I was going to bung a big bottlle of Miltons in and fill up the tank & leave it for a couple of days, but someones pointed out that you're not supposed to use Miltons on metal. Same question applies to the black water tank.

 

Miltons is fine on stainless steel so long as the water is not hot. It's only above a certain temperature that the chlorine can react with the stainless steel. It's MUCH cheaper to go to a swimming pool outlet and buy a large container of swimming pool chlorine powder. It's EXACTLY the same stuff as Milton's at a far lower cost. (Sodium Hypochlorite)

 

Swimming pools have many stainless steel fitments and "Miltons" is used all the time; remember too that the temperature of a swimming pool is way above your water tank's temperature. I have a 450 litre SS tank and whenever I fill it I add 1 level TEAspoonful of Sodium Hypochlorite per 200 litres. ie: 2 level teaspoonfuls per full tank. I also have a filter on the main galley cold water tap to remove any taste etc.

 

 

Chris

Edited April 1, 2008 by chris w

[BlueStringPudding]

I was going to bung a big bottlle of Miltons in and fill up the tank & leave it for a couple of days, but someones pointed out that you're not supposed to use Miltons on metal. Same question applies to the black water tank.

 

Really? Our surveyor told us to use Milton.

[blackrose]

Really? Our surveyor told us to use Milton.

 

The new type of Milton fluid states that immersion is only required for 15 minutes and rinsing is not necessary. My tank is quite big (1275 litres). I chucked about 6 bottles in my tank, left it for 20 mins and then pumped it all out of each outlet in turn to sterilise the pipes and taps, then refilled the tank.

 

Getting it all out probably reduced the life of my pump though.