Could this be a good water container?

[acropora4u]

I can get a 275gal that had soy oil in it. Price is $75. Can this be cleaned out for use with reef tank?

What is the soy container made of ?

 

[Dj City]

This is the container.
pic for representation. Not actual container but he has exactly the same ones.

 

[sharpimage]

The first one probably has metal in it somewhere. I would not use it.

The plastic totes in the other pictures I would use. Fill, rinse, soak, repeat until it smells clean, and the water comes out clean. The food grade plastic should not absorb the material in it.

 

[Dj City]

so after talking to BRS again, I was told more than once that I will be good cleaning the container out.

I got the 1000L container. The one in the metal cage.
I filled it with tap water and added a jeabo 15000 pump.
I'm going to add 3 gallons of bleach to the container and let it circulate for at least 24 hours.
I purchased a gallon of citric acid that I will use after the bleach.
I "should" be good to go after that.

Anyone have any other ideas on how I can get this thing clean enough to use for new saltwater?

 

[Dj City]

This is me thanking the moderator for merging the duplicate threads into one thread.

Thank you.

 

[Dj City]

I am done with the bleach.
I am now doing the citric acid.

I'm curious to see how this is going to turn out.
I will keep you guys posted.

 

[Aquavaj]

I would not get any that previously held some kind of oil. Too late now. Mine had avocado oil and no matter what I used to clean it it still left the oily residue. I used it to store rodi waste water and the water got disgusting from the oil. Ended up cutting the top half off, lining the inside with a thick plastic liner and used it as a holding tank.

 

[Dj City]

I would not get any that previously held some kind of oil. Too late now. Mine had avocado oil and no matter what I used to clean it it still left the oily residue. I used it to store rodi waste water and the water got disgusting from the oil. Ended up cutting the top half off, lining the inside with a thick plastic liner and used it as a holding tank.

Did you try bleach?
Did you try citric acid?

Imma be truly upset if I can't get this to work because I can't think of how to get rid of this giant container if I can't get it clean and use it.

 

[Phildago]

I would get them. First I would rinse it with regular water, then with bleach, then with vinegar, then again with water, then finally I would fill it with Rodi, let it sit for a day and empty that as the final rinse.

Although, someone did make a good point about oil. Oil could be cleaned with a nonpolar solvent like acetone, possibly alcohol although alcohol is slightly polar and may not completely solve the oil

Edit: I just saw the citric acid wash you're doing. That's even better, good.

 

[Dj City]

With the bleach rinse, there was a slight residue that settled on the top at the water line. It was easily cleaned out with a rag.
The container was looking good after the first bleach rinse.

With the citric acid, there is nothing on the surface or sides at the waterline and nothing on the bottom.
So far, its looking good.

When I'm done with the citric acid rinse, I'm going to find out again with pure rodi water, then submit an icp test.

 

[GlassMunky]

With the bleach rinse, there was a slight residue that stepped on the top at the water line. It was easily cleaned out with a rag.
The container was looking good after the first bleach rinse.

With the citric acid, there is nothing on the surface or sides at the waterline and nothing on the bottom.
So far, its looking good.

When I'm done with the citric acid rinse, I'm going to find out again with pure rodi water, then submit an icp test.

Just curious what you would expect an ICP Test to show you.
not won’t be able to say if there’s still oil or soapresidue it would just tell you (maybe) what component elements make those up.
more maybe I’m misunderstanding how ICP works

 

[Dj City]

Just curious what you would expect an ICP Test to show you.
not won’t be able to say if there’s still oil or soapresidue it would just tell you (maybe) what component elements make those up.
more maybe I’m misunderstanding how ICP works

Icp test will show me exactly whats in the water and how much of whatever is in the water. If I have soap in the water or anything else, it will show high concentrations of whatever elements make up the soap or whatever.

It should let me know if my water is safe for the reef.

 

[GlassMunky]

Icp test will show me exactly whats in the water and how much of whatever is in the water. If I have soap in the water or anything else, it will show high concentrations of whatever elements make up the soap or whatever.

It should let me know if my water is safe for the reef.

Do you know what elements normally make up soap?
or what make up oil?
how would you distinguish if those were from soap or oil or from some other source?

 

[GlassMunky]

Example: soybean oil is C57H98O12
How would you know if any of this is still present?
Its just carbon hydrogen and oxygen

 

[Dj City]

Do you know what elements normally make up soap?
or what make up oil?
how would you distinguish if those were from soap or oil or from some other source?

No but the icp test has ranges that are high, good or low.
If everything comes back in the good safe range, I should be good.
If it shows high potassium or zinc or some other crazy element, then I know the water is not good.

 

[Dj City]

Do you know the elemental breakdown of soybean oil?

By the way, the container I have did not have soybean oil in it. It had soap for mobile car detail operation.

Bleach should take care of all the organics. I hope citric acid takes care of anything else.

 

[GlassMunky]

Do you know the elemental breakdown of soybean oil?

By the way, the container I have did not have soybean oil in it. It had soap for mobile car detail operation.

Bleach should take care of all the organics. I hope citric acid takes care of anything else.

I would be FAR more worried about some kind of soap than I would be about something like soybean oil.
Who knows what kind of soap they used and what it was made of.
Was it antibacterial?

you’re risking way too much on an unknown just to save a couple bucks IMO. I’d just go buy a brand new container and have 110% piece of mind that it will NEVER cause an issue.


But not my tank

 

[GlassMunky]

Do you know the elemental breakdown of soybean oil?

By the way, the container I have did not have soybean oil in it. It had soap for mobile car detail operation.

Bleach should take care of all the organics. I hope citric acid takes care of anything else.

And yes I posted the elemental breakdown of soybean oil above. It’s carbon hydrogen and oxygen.
2 of 3 of those are things you’d find an abundance of in water

 

[Dj City]

And yes I posted the elemental breakdown of soybean oil above. It’s carbon hydrogen and oxygen.
2 of 3 of those are things you’d find an abundance of in water

Thank you.
I'm going to take the advice of the BRS team and see if I can get this to work.
I will do the icp test and before using in my display, I will test on a test tank. I have a few 10 and 20 gallon tanks hanging around.
I will set one up and add a damsel and test coral to see how it goes.

Worst case, I tried and it did not work out.
Best case, I got a 275 gallon container for free and I can do continuous water change.

Btw...
Nice build thread.

 

[Dj City]

So...

I cleaned the container with 3 bottles of bleach that circulated for 2 days.
Drained and rinsed with fresh water circulated for 1 day.
Drained and filled again. Added 1 gallon of citric acid and circulated for 3 days.
Drained, rinsed and filled again with fresh water.
Had fresh water circulating for 2 days.
Drained and filled again with RO/DI. That water circulated for 3 days.
I have no smell, no residue, no hint of anything being in the water.

I purchased the RO/DI water saver and hooked it up to produce faster water with less waste.
I ran into a problem though. I guess I did not let enough water go through the unit before filling because the membrane was showing 43 TDS before hitting the DI resin. It has since gone down to 8 TDS but I burned through a freshly packed new DI cartridge in under 200 gallons. By the time the container was full, the RO/DI unit was reading 5 TDS product water to the container.

I pulled out my handheld TDS meeter and got 1 TDS in the container.

I'm thinking the water container is good. 1 TDS is not bad water but I'm going to put new DI resin and new sediment filter in and fill the whole thing again using the water in it now as a final rinse.

Anyone have any thoughts?