Drinking Water Challenge

[Loredo]

"But it has a definite "funk" smell"

Nah, I would've done this different from the beginning.
Nowadays, I always use a solution of silver ion fluid in our tanks. That stuff works!

It has happpend that I forgot to use the tanks alternatively only to find out that the STB tank in the aft had been filled 8 months earlier. NO smell at all!
Pure, drinkable water. Bleech kills only 80 different bakteria types, silver ion over 300.

Before I started to use the silver ion solution we would always carry drinking water in jerry cans. No longer, now we can use the tank water for everything comprising cooking.

Don't get me wrong, I still have a manual desalinator on board but it's now very unlikely that we'll need it.

A simple solution for potential trouble and no more need for a charcoal filter on board to boot.

OH, yeah, one good and cheap trick to reduce water consumption on board is a small needle valve installed in line with the electric water pump. Tighten it your likings to greatly reduce the water flow @ the faucet. Done.
Just don't tell the crew where that valve is...

[sestina]

Maybe because your gut has got so used to living without any impurites at all it can't cope with the odd bug that comes along.

[Loredo]

Maybe it would be a good idea to add some information about the silver ion thing.

Here's a link to one of these products:

Products - Katadyn Products Inc.

Like I said above, it works!
Similar ( same? ) products can be found from a variety of companies. It can be had in tablets, liquid pre mixed solution or as a powder. I use a similar product to the one in the above link. That's the less expensive way for the silver ion. It threads 50.000 liters for about 70 Euro.

Nope, I'm not affilated with Katadyn. In fact I don't even use their product. It's the only website for such a product I was able to find in English.

[delmarrey]

Good and bad.
Ions, Not Particles, Make Silver Toxic to Bacteria