To TREAT or NOT To TREAT

[High Cotton]

Do you treat your diesel tank or not ?

If you do, how often do you treat and with what PRODUCT ?

[seafox]

fuel power. Supposed to stop diesel bug from happening and disperse water etc. 5ml treats 20lts so cheap insurance. Not sure if it does anything though

[Alan Wheeler]

It is recomended that you treat about once every three months. This ensures a dificult environment for the growth of nasties to occur. The best way to trreat water is to ensure you have a good water trap/filter. There are products that are supposed to mix with water and allow the water to burn away, but they are nothing more than water soluble solvents, much like you get in degreasers etc. It may allow the water to pass through and burn, but it can still damage the tips of injectors.
Do any of them work?? well it depends. I think most that say they kill bug do so, but as for engine performance improvement and injector cleaning goes, most of these additives fall very short of the mark.

[Celestialsailor]

I reluctantly voted to treat although I had a terrible experience with a product by
Valv Tect. After adding it to my tank and leaving the harbor 2 months later for a trip across the Monterey Bay, I got just outside of the harbor mouth when the diesel engine began to hick-up and stopped. My friend and I looked like 2 monkeys climbing a football getting the sails up, clawing off a lee shore and eventually back into the harbor. Later upon examination, I found it difficult to pull the cooper draw tube from the tank. It was covered in a black crystaline type of material. It had totally blocked the entire 24 inches of the inside of the tube also. Later I made some test samples in various dishes with diesel and the additive with a copper penny in each. The results were the same. The dish with just diesel did nothing to the penny. The dish mixed to the formula with diesel turned the penny black as did the dish with double the mixture.
I tried to contact the company but they would not return my calls or letters. Buyer beware I guess! You can bet I always leave a harbor now with the main up.
Now I have 2 large (40 gal) storage tanks and pump up to a day tank(15gal) via a filter. The thinking here is to use a small amount of diesel ASAP and provide clean diesel through filtration.

[GordMay]

I use Biobor JF (fungicide), as instructed, at about 1/4 Fluid Ounce per 20 gallons of fuel.
See package instructions for correct dosage levels per application (shock & maintenance doses).

[waterworldly]

What about having a fuel polisher instead?

[Pblais]

I generally don't treat my fuel. I always try to buy it from the highest volume seller not the cheapest price. I'm a sail boat my fuel bill is nothing. The trick to storing fuel is not to. You can't store 50 gallons of fuel indefinitely. It needs to be used up. At the end of the season I fill the tank to reduce condensation over the winter.

Additives can kill the bacteria but when you have moisture in the tank you can't really treat it out the water. Where there is water there will always be growth. Most of the time what will foul the filters is the dead growth. Alive or dead it's still there and still glogs up and with water it always comes back. Once your tank is trashed additives are a joke. Over treating just breaks down the fuel lines.

Fuel polishers are nice but expensive. Polishing 70 gallons of fuel seems like a more money than brains approach. If you can set up a 400 gallons per hour pump you can wash the inside of the tank. That really works. If you buy fuel 500 gallons at a time for your ocean trawler then it might just be a good thing to do if you have to buy it unsavory places.

[Tropic Cat]

I use my boat year round. I keep my fuel tanks just about empty with 2-3 gallons of diesel in each fuel tank and replenish every 3-4 months as needed. I buy my fuel from a high volume truck stop, never marina fuel docks. I learned the hard way (don't we all).

I still use a biocide.

[Celestialsailor]

I like Pblias's approach. Often times additives are added when it is too late. If they are added as a scheduale, it might reduce the amount of wear and tear on the filters. This last year I decided to clean my tanks "just is case" they had a problem since I am crossing the pond in 08. Here is a before and after picture. The hairs on my arms stood up when I opened the tanks!

[Alan Wheeler]

There is no substitute for clean tanks to begin with and then continuing to keep them clean.
I dose every so often with biocide only to maintain tank cleanlyness. Once you have growth in a tank, it is a big job to remove it. We can not help but get the odd drop of water in the tank , so it is better to ensure growth does not take hold. If growth does take hold, the worst thing you can then do is dose the tank with a biocide and then not physicaly clean the tank out. The dead growth plugs filters very quickly and you will replace a filter only to have the new one block a few minutes later. That often happens at the worst possible time, especially as the sea state is usually boistrous and was the priciple cause of stirring up the gunge in the tank. So IMO, get the tank clean, keep it clean and never let growth ever get a foot hold.

[Pblais]

[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']I dose every so often with biocide only to maintain tank cleanlyness. [/FONT]

So where does the "dirt go"? It only begs to wonder. Bacteria have a tendency to eat their own dead. Grizzly stuff.

[MidLandOne]

I use Chemtech Diesel Power which is an additive peddled a lot here in NZ. Really don't know if it does any good at all but it hasn't caused any problems nor have I had any other fuel problem.

It is claimed to be a biocide and water dispersant, plus some other things which I suspect is mostly marketing rubbish .

I would need a boroscope to be able to look inside our tank (that part of the fin keel not full of lead is the fuel tank so the top is not wide enough for a useful inspection port) so instead keep an eye on the colour of the fuel and the condition of the fuel filters when changed.

Like Rick in Florida I always try to buy our fuel from high volume automotive outlets as an extra precaution. We usually get through around 200-300 litres (approx 55 - 80 US gals) per year from a 320 litre tank.

[Alan Wheeler]

So where does the "dirt go"?

Ummm, good point. I am not being clear. I was not proposing that an additive stops dirt nor even removes it. There maybe some additive makers out there that might suggest there product does, but in reality, none can. I was implying that growth can not get a chance to start, thus the tank is kept clean of any growth.

[Boracay]

I have a suspicion that the growth of "algae" in diesel is due to light entering the tank.

This would happen in plastic tanks.

The cases that I have noted of fuel contamination have all been in plastic tanks.

Has anyone had a problem with "algae" in metal tanks?

[Alan Wheeler]

Has anyone had a problem with "algae" in metal tanks?

Oh yeah. Doesn't matter what the material is. The growth and I have used the term growth, because the little greeblies that grow can be Algae and/or Bacteria. These greeblies are the same as found down at great depths of ocean in the dark and underground in the dark and so on. It's not your everyday common garden variety of greeblies. These ones are happy in the dark. The algae that grows in your waterlines are however light requiring fellows..plants...or whatever the heck they are. So if you have clear plastic water lines, ensure they are kept in the dark, which stops the insides going green.