Best large water barrels and tanks

Thomas GomezStaff - January 10, 2021

The best options for storing large amounts of water in a fixed place.

[See the full post at: Best large water barrels and tanks]

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Purchased four WaterPrepared 55 gallon containers per this site’s recommendation two years ago.  

Cleaned with a water bleach solution, filled up.

Emptied them this week to refill.  As I opened the tap, black slime came out immediately from the spigot of each of the four tanks.  Opened the tops, and found black slime around the plastic lining the interior of the spigot. 

I’ve reached out to the manufacture, but I don’t know what to do.  Can’t really get a brush in there to scrub out around the seals.  

Are these tanks compromised?  Can I salvage them?

 

Sorry to hear you are having those issues with your water barrels. Another forum member had a similar issue a few months ago and there were some good comments on that thread:

Water storage issues–water bricks contaminated after 1 year

How do the o-rings look on each of the openings? Are they still intact and functioning well or is that possibly where the black slime came from? 

It sounds like you got some contamination in there somehow and will need to do a good cleaning, treat again, and then fill. If you have a pressure washer or could go to a manual car wash and could spray them out with that wand, that could be a way you can get deep into the containers and blast out any growth that has accumulated. Get a long brush or clean rag in there and wipe out as much as you can. Then buy a brand new bottle of unscented bleach and pour like 1/4 of the bottle in each along with a few gallons of clean water. Roll the containers around and swish that very concentrated mixture around, wait 10 minutes roll around, and wait another 10. Repeat for like 40 minutes to make sure everything is completely sanitized and killed off. 

Like Colorado Jones mentions in that forum post I linked to, avoid using an old garden hose that might have some contaminants in it itself. Olly Wright has some good pointers in that post too. The prep work is very critical, even take out the o-rings/gaskets and clean those and under them as well. 

When you are finished, add a bit higher than the recommended amount of bleach to treat the stored water knowing that you have had issues with that container in the past.

Here’s another recent thread with some helpful tips: Filling 5 Gallon Water Jugs – From the Tap or Filtered? In this thread someone mentions the ratios of pure new bleach to water.