I've been using colloidal silver on our boat for the past +/- 10 years with great results. Before I came to know colloidal silver I was using various chlorine products with very poor results for over 20 years.
Here's the story. I went to check out my actual boat which had been sitting
on the hard for 1.5 years. The water
tanks were full and had been sitting for all this time. I opened a faucet and expected the good ol' rotten egg smell. Instead, to my great surprise, NO smell at all! HUH???
I asked the PO what the heck of a product he had used to sterilize the water. He pulled that tiny plastic bottle out of a locker and showed it to me. Colloidal silver. Since then I'm using nothing else than the colloidal silver to treat the water in my tanks.
Someone asked for typical product.
This:
https://www.yachticon.de/en/drinking-water.html
Aqua Clean is
sold as a liquid or as a solid / powder. Since it's way less expensive, I've tried to use the powder but it is too difficult to get the right dose for the relatively small tanks a typical leisure boat has. The big container is good for 50'000 L! One would need a high precision scale which I do not have.
While the liquid (that would be the small bottle on the left in the picture in the link) is more expensive, it is much easier to use. The 100 ml bottle is good for 1000 L of water.
Back then I did my "due duty research" and found that Colloidal silver works on many more different bacteria types than chlorine thus it is more efficient and in LOW concentrations it is not harmful for the human body.
With this said, we use our tank water for cooking, coffee, eventually drink it (Most often it's bottled water for us but that's another story). The water without any filtration does never smell and has no particular taste even after a couple years in the tank. Try this with chlorine!
Another point to address in the "debate" chlorine VS colloidal silver is how the boat is used. As long as the water comes from any at least reasonable clean municipal water source and is not stored for a "long" time in the tanks the smell problem does not develop. If we take the water on board and start / continue to use it the different bacteria families do not have the time to grow. A
live aboard will likely never even develop the smell problem. In fact, during our
vacation cruises where we use water from the tanks daily, I do not add the silver as long as the water source seems OK.
(Back then, I wouldn’t add chlorine in the scenario either.) If in doubt about the water quality, I add the silver.
Another story is when the water is
stored in the tank(s) for long(er) periods of time. Like a lot of people like me who fill up the tanks and then use it (only) over the weekends. In my case, since we have learned over the years to save water, it can take us 3 months before we need to fill up again. Water sitting in a tank for three months or even more, eventually in the summer heat, anything chlorine will be evaporated in a few days and the stink starts. NOT so with the colloidal silver!
Is the silver expensive? Yes indeed it is, BUT in my case I use a couple of these tiny bottles (at most) in a year. At that point, in the grand scheme of the boat bucks the expense is not even worth to mention.
I hope this helps a bit understanding the difference between chlorine and silver tank-water treatment.
Loredo
PS since I could not use the big powder bottle for my tanks I decided to try it in the pool. Since then, no more chlorine in the pool either.
PS-2 if the water stinks in the boat and you start using the silver, give it a couple months and it'll kill the bacteria. No need to clean anything just let the "silver-water" sit and it does its thing on its own. Reports from several friends confirmed it.