Drinking Water from watertanks

[YachtBroker]

I have also use a standard Seagull IV filter on every boat I have ever owned and it will take all tank taste out of the water. Even after sitting thru the summer in the bahamas the water was still drinkable.

[Paul Kelly]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I’m in the “not sure what problem you’re trying to solve” group. We always drink our tank water. Source from clean places. Take some basic steps to avoid introducing junk. Shock the tank once a year. If water is questionable, add some bleach. We run it through a basic physical filter and then a carbon filter to remove any odours. Not dead yet.

The idea of using bottled water on our boat seems nuts to me. We just got in from a six week cruise where we touched one dock (and took on no water). Where the heck would I store all that bottled water .

How much bleach do you add Mike? It'd be very helpful to know. Thanks.

[stormalong]

+1 on the Seagull IV filter. Put it on a separate water tap so you don't waste the expensive filter on washing up water.

I use a standard wrapped cord filter on all water coming from my tanks which is a good prefilter for the Seagull.

[Valmika]

So I have always had a thought about the UV filters. I hope someone here can answer. It's my understanding that antibiotics work by introducing dead cells of something and our bodies build an immunity to them.



It is also my understanding that UV does not kill but sterilizes the bacteria in the water. Would this then allow our bodies to build up a tolerance to the bacteria before it would multiply?


Shoot me down on any of these points please. I travel a lot in Mexico and have thought of getting a UV Filter.

[desodave]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Or take the view that Sailorchic like me would rather know something is going wrong before it gets serious. We drink straight from the tank no filters, just an annual dose of bleach to keep us alive

Pete

We also carry a number of 5 and 10 gallon jugs of water fit into various places to increase our water capacity. Same deal - sanitize at the start of the season. However, we are taking on water from sources that are regularly tested and inspected. Would never consider bottled water - no guarantees of purity anyhow, and storing both the full and empty bottles a pain I don't want.

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by Valmika

So I have always had a thought about the UV filters. I hope someone here can answer. It's my understanding that antibiotics work by introducing dead cells of something and our bodies build an immunity to them.

It is also my understanding that UV does not kill but sterilizes the bacteria in the water. Would this then allow our bodies to build up a tolerance to the bacteria before it would multiply?

Shoot me down on any of these points please. I travel a lot in Mexico and have thought of getting a UV Filter.

I think you have your terminology wrong.

You are confusing antibiotics with inoculations. Inoculations are the introduction of weakened or dead disease cells to trigger an immune system response. That is not how antibiotics work.

Sterilization in this context is the killing of pathogens, not making them unable to reproduce.

I am not a biologist so others may be able to shed more light on the subject.

[Huskybeer]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I’m in the “not sure what problem you’re trying to solve” group. We always drink our tank water. Source from clean places. Take some basic steps to avoid introducing junk. Shock the tank once a year. If water is questionable, add some bleach. We run it through a basic physical filter and then a carbon filter to remove any odours. Not dead yet.

The idea of using bottled water on our boat seems nuts to me. We just got in from a six week cruise where we touched one dock (and took on no water). Where the heck would I store all that bottled water .

Can you explain „shock the tank“ with ultrasound or what?

[thinwater]

Definitely about "what problem are you trying to solve?" Many are happy with tap water, and regular cruisers and live aboards turn it over fast enough to keep it fresh. The issues of occasional cruisers are actually more complex.

• Junk. Dock hoses often shed a lot of gunk. A bag filter is probably the best way to catch it. A dirty tank can't be sanitized and can get funky.
• Skunky water. Some water turns fast, generally the result of sulfate turning to sulfide. Chlorination is the solution, not filtration. City water is chlorinated, but for example, my marina is on well water (no chlorine) and it goes skunky fast.
• Bugs. Used systematically, chlorine and filters can address this, but remember you will ALWAYS be exposed to bugs on shore.

I've done large scale water treatment and written a bunch for sailors. This is a short version.

Sail Delmarva: Drinking Water Filtration--The Short Version
My feeling is that there is no magic gadget. I don't think much of UV (takes too much power, requires regular cleaning, only treats the water, not the pipes). It's about good sanitation and a systematic approach that you understand. Each step should have a defined purpose.

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by Huskybeer

Can you explain „shock the tank“ with ultrasound or what?

Visit a swimming pool supply company site for shock info.

In our tanks, it's heavily chlorinate, let it mix a bit, run through all the taps and hot water tank until you can smell the chlorine, let sit 24 hours, run the rest of it through and out, rinse, again empty, and you should then have bacteria-free lines and tanks with whatever quality of water you put in the tanks after that.

For ourselves, living aboard for 13 years, we've never done that, and always drink our water, much of which we catch (and add a tiny bit of bleach - a capful for the rear 120G, and a couple for the forward 195G tank - just in case of airborne contamination) in the Bahamas.

The water from the sky there is amazing; we won't catch water anywhere other than there or at sea on a calm day (straight down rain, so no sea spray) - and in both cases, scrubbing our decks before it, letting the rain rinse and flush the deck area which catches the water.

YMMV, but it's worked well for us, with our 40-year-old fiberglass tanks.

[Marathon1150]

When our boat was in Canada we drank from the tanks but used a carbon filter to remove peculiar tastes, including the taste of the bleach that we added.

In Mexico we used a UV/filter device (Dockwater Solutions) instead of bleach to sterilize the dock water going into the tank so that we could use tank water to backflush the watermaker. We did not drink the tank water but we did fill a carboy with either watermaker water or sterilized dock water and drank that. Or we used refillable and returnable 20L carboys.

In Tahiti we are assured that the dock water is potable and is not normally chlorinated so we are filling the carboy and the tanks with that water and not drinking the water from the tank primarily because we are not adding bleach because of the watermaker.

The tanks are GRP and old. I clean them annually and administer a "chlorine shock" at the same time. We pickle the watermaker in order to not use tank water for the weekly backflush (we do not make water in marinas, ever). At some point we are likely to start drinking the tank water again. Timing to be determined by the expected lifetime of amoeba and other critters that have likely taken up residence in our water system during our 10 years in Mexico.

Buying plastic bottles of water is an absolute last resort in order to minimize adding more plastic garbage into the environment. Having lived and still working from time to time in SE Asia, I have observed that discarded plastic water bottles are a significant source of environmental plastic pollution that has overwhelmed governmental ability to manage through processing and/or education.

[Simi 60]

No filters for us
Water from the tap and from the sky to fill the tanks and drink it

[sailcrazy]

Our 30-yr old S/S water tanks show a little rust at a few of the welds, but the water is clear, not turbid, and there are no "floaties in the tank; it seems normal with no other issues to note. But when we run the watermaker-made water thru a 10 micron filter just before the dist. system, the filter turns dull red quickly and needs to be changed at least every 3 weeks. Smaller or ceramic filters just plug up quicker. The water tastes fine, is clear (not turbid), and looks normal, but the "red" filter does cause some concern. Anyone have any ideas on how best to filter/resolve?

[ben2go]

Hang a straw over the side, make sure it's biodegradable first, and have a nice drink. We're mostly saltwater. A little more can't hurt. It's logical.

[ramblinrod]

Shock the tanks and all lines with 1% chlorine bleach water solution, leave for 4 hours, empty, fill, empty fill (all tanks and lines). Put a Brita filter on the galley tap to keep it tasting nice. Done.

[Ferrari]

We never take plastic bottles of water aboad any more its such a waste of energy lugging and storing them and its not necessary.