Battling Earth's most prolific residents

Single-celled life was here long before us, and will be here long after we no longer grace the surface of the planet.  That said, we still want to reserve some small areas for our exclusive use.  s/v Letitgo decides that their water tank is one such area:

Our second major undertake was to regain control of the fauna in our water tanks. Do you remember few weeks back our water filter under the kitchen sink? in this post http://svletitgo.com/2011/03/racor-filter-500ma-and-fuel-fixer-r2d2/. Well, during our trip this became a routine; we had to remove black then white, then translucent fungus! Luckily we were prepared and had gallons of fresh water for internal consumption! That being said when we arrived back at the marina we took drastic measures! Bleach was the solution, a real shock treatment, we are now happy to report success we drunk the water at lunch today and still able to write this post tonight.

Ingredients for the cleaning of water tank:

• 1 gallon of bleach in each tank with ¼ left in them. Run all outlets don’t forget the deck shower until a nice clean smell of Clorox is present. Let it sit for 48 hours no hot water tank during that time.
• Go out for a sail in 18 knots wind with some nice waves and allow the boat to get a good shake. Then empty the tank put the valves on both at the same time, and why not empty the shower in the toilet and clean the holding tank at the same time. Listen for the water pump, clean filter accordingly.
• Get back to the dock, and start filling the tank with fresh water. Use my filtering devices (a beauty by the way) and start the same process to clear the taste.
• Clean your filter again and again, empty tank, refill with fresh filtered water and you are in business.
• Nice drinkable water on your boat. I told you it’s that simple, we have plastic water tank so this help, if you have aluminum be careful the bleach eat them alive apparently.

Unfortunately, this is temporary, unless you are filling your tanks from chlorinated city mains.