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Corrosive Orange Fungus


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Can anyone please help shed any light on a comment that was made during a discussion yesterday please?

We were discussing the slipping and blacking of boats and one of our group said a surveyor had warned them about a new "corrosive orange fungus" that needs to be watched out for. I am told he said the usual greenish greyish stuff that tends to accumulate on hulls is no problem and can just be washed off but there is a new orange type of fungus which is highly corrosive to hulls and needs to be removed thoroughly if it is spotted. 

My immediate thought was that the person relaying the information was mistaken and rather than being an orange "fungus" the orange corrosion you can see due to galvanic activity is what he was talking about but - I am no expert and certainly not a surveyor so can anyone shed any light on this strange new thing we need to watch out for on our hulls please? 

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10 minutes ago, RLWP said:

Thank you Richard. So this is likely to be found just below the waterline by the sounds of it. 

It sounds like it is a real enough thing. I had not knowingly come across it. How common is this stuff?

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11 minutes ago, cheshire~rose said:

Thank you Richard. So this is likely to be found just below the waterline by the sounds of it. 

It sounds like it is a real enough thing. I had not knowingly come across it. How common is this stuff?

It is getting more common all the time with the movement of boats across the network and proliferation of marinas.

I also think that Poland is importing it, having  a much worse problem given the state of some of the (fairly new) Aqualine hulls I have seen recently.:D

 

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The iron-oxidising bacteria that Richard mentioned is really common up here around Inverness. It's naturally occurring because of the iron content in the ground. You find it in wooded areas mostly as it seems to thrive in damp and dull and boggy. There is a woodland walk near me at Reelig Glen, Moniack, it's more prevalent there than I've ever seen it anywhere because the big tall trees block the light, there is a lot of ferns and moss - you get the picture. It will eat stuff thats left sat in it but the general rule of thumb is its easy got rid of with a good scrub and fresh air or water. You never see it bright, sunny places or faster moving water. 

I've no idea how that helps boats in anyway but it might give it some context - 

As for corrosive orange fungus I got nothing.

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8 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Get a Duck. They like the orange flavour.

Saucy!

10 hours ago, matty40s said:

It is getting more common all the time with the movement of boats across the network and proliferation of marinas.

I also think that Poland is importing it, having  a much worse problem given the state of some of the (fairly new) Aqualine hulls I have seen recently.:D

 

So perhaps continuous moorers are doing us all a favour after all ;)

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14 hours ago, matty40s said:

It is getting more common all the time with the movement of boats across the network and proliferation of marinas.

I also think that Poland is importing it, having  a much worse problem given the state of some of the (fairly new) Aqualine hulls I have seen recently.:D

 

Have also  heard this from someone else. We own a Polish built boat, not Aqualine and its steel is in excellent condition. Aqualine have been building boats for a while now, lots about. Are you seeing probleme with newish boats or the older ones?

Ian.

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14 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Smug-Face.

It makes one glad to own GRP boats.

I'd have thought a decent coating of an appropriate paint would be a good barrier to iron-oxidising bacteria, so its only really going to be a problem for those who don't keep their hulls maintained.

It makes one glad to have 4 coats of Jotamastic epoxy. 

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I must confess Matty's post confused me a bit, what he described didn't sound like Iron-Oxidising Bacteria as I understood it, but Matty knows his stuff so I thought I must be missing something and went off for a google. I found these two articles that others may find interesting - they are about ocean going vessel but bacteria would do just as well in a marina as Matty stated.

 

 

https://maineboats.com/blog/2016/scientists-maine-are-helping-navy-fight-rust

 

http://www.paintsquare.com/news/?fuseaction=view&id=15795

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40 minutes ago, blackrose said:

I'd have thought a decent coating of an appropriate paint would be a good barrier to iron-oxidising bacteria, so its only really going to be a problem for those who don't keep their hulls maintained.

It makes one glad to have 4 coats of Jotamastic epoxy. 

I am not sure ALL of this orange stuff is coming from the boat hull. If you read the link on the first post, it describes how the bacteria works in an anerobic environment to generate Iron hydroxide which then in an aerobic environment creates the iron oxide (or rust). This Iron hydroxide is coming from the ground (the soil) - not a boat . Seeing orange on your boat could be the iron in the ground is getting coverted into Iron hydroxide due to not enough oxygen in the water in local streams and then getting washed into the canal...and turning to rust on the OUTSIDE of your paint as there is now excess oxygen in the water. This would mean it woud discolour GRP boats in the same way.

I am sure you do get this type of corrosion on steel hulls but how normal is it? It needs water with very limited oxygen which is not usually the case when near the waterline - unless you pour bottles of going off milk overboard.

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2 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

I am sure you do get this type of corrosion on steel hulls but how normal is it? It needs water with very limited oxygen which is not usually the case when near the waterline - unless you pour bottles of going off milk overboard.

But the article addresses this very issue – the researchers were surprised to find that the bacteria had adapted to cope with well oxygenated water. OTOH, this was using seawater, so the results are not necessarily replicable in fresh.

All together now: More research is needed!

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23 minutes ago, BruceinSanity said:

But the article addresses this very issue – the researchers were surprised to find that the bacteria had adapted to cope with well oxygenated water. OTOH, this was using seawater, so the results are not necessarily replicable in fresh.

All together now: More research is needed!

Wur Dooooommmmmed, Doooomed I say, Dooooommmmed

 

(Frazer to Cpt Mainwaring when Jones identified the orange fungus on his van)

 

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32 minutes ago, BruceinSanity said:

OTOH, this was using seawater, so the results are not necessarily replicable in fresh.

I thought that too until I did a bit more reading around and discovered that both the iron-oxidising bacteria and the sulfate-reducers are quite happy in fresh water. The sulphate-reducers especially would like the marina environment, which is why I mentioned it. Now my only experience of it is local to where I live now but even so I've not heard of it being a problem in any of our local marinas - but then there will be quite a lot of water movement on the Caley.

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45 minutes ago, jenevers said:

I always assumed this was common, as I had it on my narrowboat hull 20 years ago and every time I dry docked.

Powdery crusts, around a square inch, of bright orange which, when removed, left a shallow, bright silver metal which, very quickly,flash rusted over.

Yup, that sounds like MIC. 

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This also sounds a lot like 'Rust' or 'Electrolysis', how can you tell them apart?, Rust 'flowers' or whatever you call them have always grown on steel and often have a shiny pit under them that when exposed to air rusted over. I am certainly not an expert but I wonder just how many things there really are nibbling away at our steel? Anyway, it seems that the advice is always going to be to keep a layer of paint on the thing, unless..... how about putting a layer of GRP over the boat, ... or maybe covering it in wooden planks?

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  • 1 year later...
2 hours ago, cheshire~rose said:

Following some research I was just doing I stumbled upon this thread and it turns out it was microbial corrosion that was spoken about. 

Yeah, ‘MIC’ for short. 

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