Cleaning water storage bucket

[Esabasard]

Just curious what the best way to clean a water bucket. It was used to store ro water but has been sitting for a while and grew mold. How do I get it clean enough to store ro water again without contaminating it? Thanks.

 

[rcmike]

I'd probably just bleach it and rinse it with fresh water and then let it dry completely.

 

[Esabasard]

How much bleach? Does it matter if I rinse it well?

 

[caudill187]

I'd probably use about 1/3 of the bleach concentration recommended for laundry then rinse, fill the container with tap water for a soak, dry, rinse again, then dry.....or something like that.

 

[rcmike]

Yeah, I never really measure it for anything like this, I just pour a little in. As long as you get it rinsed out good I doubt it matters a lot how much you use. A lot of people are a little paranoid about using chlorine on anything for their tanks but it is pretty safe as long as it is rinsed well.

 

[ibbennyb]

chlorine / bleach will evaporate.. do a good job cleaning / rinsing put out in the sun and it will be fine..

 

[eric31887]

Actually I remove mold for a living and we never use bleach! The best the is dawn dish washing liquid just make sure it is anti bacterial!

 

[Esabasard]

My fear of using soap is that it will leave some kind of residue. Mainly I want to be sure that what I do isn't going to cause any harm.

 

[andywe]

You don't want to use soap. Bleach or vinegar..or muriatic acid is the bucket is plastic. You can use a high concentration of bleach water but make sure and rinse very very well and let dry completely, or use some Dichlor and let sit overnight for the rinse. Dichlor is super concentrated so a few nice squirts from a small bottle is all that needed and it will lock up the chloride. Then rinse throrough again and your good to go.

 

[eric31887]

What is the difference between bleach and bleach water? You say not to use bleach but use bleach water cause I have some containers I need to clean out? Why not use soap seems like it would be the softest thing of the three?

 

[rcmike]

Mixing bleach with water will just dilute it more. You don't need to use it full strength really. The main thing with soaps is that they usually leave a residue behind. I would be especially careful with any that say the contain antibacterial stuff in them. Bleach will pretty much break down into salt and water eventually.

 

[gmoney243]

i use either bleach if something needs to be white or vinegar if it just needs cleaning .. vinegar is perfectly safe and in fact is a carbon dosing source. but i wash my hands all the time with soap right before i put my hands into the tank .. the key is to make sure u rinse for at least 30sec and get it off. ive done this hundred of times at least over the last year and never any problems. ive used soap to clean containers and buckets as well but i try to avoid that just incase.if you use bleach just make sure you cant smell bleach and its safe

 

[andywe]

Soaps will leave behind residue. Mike is absolutely correct. Soaps also contain lye and a host of perfumes and other chemicals that are bad for a tank. Soaps are designed to kill and remove that in which we are trying to promote in our tanks....bacteria

 

[rcmike]

Well, if you really get down to it, Bleach contains lye too. :bigsmile: The main use for bleach is to kill bacteria. We put some in every well we drill after we complete it to disinfect anything we may have introduced during drilling.