Slime in my drinking water!! FROM WHAT???

[DannyB1954]

Very useful facts, thank you. I was thinking I need to google about bleach and how to correctly use it to treat my water. Now I don't have to because you've explained it (except I still need to find how many drops per gallon. (Guess I need to purchase an eye-dropper to manage that.)

View attachment 29821
Also I purchase this filter today, to remove all kinds of chemicals before they go into my tanks. it says it's good for 40,000 gallons. But doesn't remove germs.

View attachment 29822
And I have this one also I'll start using, which doesn't remove chemicals, but does remove all germs, even the tiniest virus.

With both of them in play, one for chemicals and one for germs, I think I should be safe.

You want to use unscented bleach. From, what I read 4 to 8 drops per gallon depending how clear the water is. . but research it as bleach can come in different concentrations. If you can smell it in the slightest it is enough I think.

 

[LargeMarge]

Five-gallon jug #1 went empty this morning, so I pulled the pump out of the jug on it's water hose to place it in still-full five-gallon jug #2. Pulling the hose out with my right hand, I let it slide through the fingers of my left hand. That's when I felt this thick, slippery slime all the way down the hose to the pump! The slime covered both the water hose to the pump and the 12v wire to the pump. (I didn't think to feel if the pump was slimy too. It probably was.)

Where on earth did the slime come from? What is it even? How do I get rid of it, permanently? It has no odor that my nose can detect, and it looked invisibly clear until I wiped it off the hose with a paper towel (which showed it to be light brown on the paper towel).

I'm afraid to take a swallow of my own drinking water when I have no idea what I would be ingesting from this water.

The only possible sources I know are:

View attachment 29813
1. I filled these jugs with fresh water from the bathtub faucet in a friend's apartment in Arlington, Texas. That water should be as pure as the city can afford to make it.

View attachment 29814
2. This is the hose I'm talking about. (Not the pump, because it went bad.)

View attachment 29815
3. The orange pump leaked water into its circuit board and died, so I replaced it with this blue pump, which has the electric wire that was slimy. I didn't think to check the blue pump itself for slime.

That covers all the sources I know of the slime could have come from. The wire and hose were in jug #1 for a couple of months, so I doubt this happened overnight.

If anyone knows the source of the slime, and/or has a cure, please fill me in on the secret!
Most of all, I don't want to get poisoned!

For our drinking water, we use one-gallon Crystal Geyser style jugs.
The original water goes in the dog bowl or is restricted to worshing.
.
We re-fill the jugs from the RO dispenser inside the grocery store.
We harbor some distrust of unsupervised dispensers outside in the weather and traffic.
.
For drinking, we transfer some water to quart-size glass wine-bottles.
We clean our jugs and bottles with a 'bottle-brush' from a restaurant-supply.
.
I generally avoid chlorine except for whacking cooties skulking in the containers.
I flush the chlorine thoroughly prior to visits to the RO machine.
I have no way to prove it, but I think a chemical designed to destroy bacteria could/might be harmful to my cherished gut biome.
.
I realize some readers could be offended by us giving Crystal Geyser factory water to the dogs.
I contemplated this long and hard, then realized their significantly stronger stomach acid probably reduces their exposure to near-zero.
Coupled with a life-span of usually less than a couple decades compared to the human potential of eighty decades, I think they are safe.

 

[kklowell]

I don't think I wanna be aroundfor 80 decades.

 

[maki2]

No issues with my drinking water. I bought Arizona tea in one gallon jugs and when empty I rinsed and refilled them from the water machines outside of stores. very stong water containers! I can't pick up a 5 gallon container of water so that size of container is not a viable option for me. I store the water in a lower cabinet and it stays both cool and fresh. If a jug ever got slimy, which in 18 months has never happened, I would just toss it out, buy a new container of tea and quickly I have a new water jug. Nice thick plasticc. Easy to use handle. I have in 18 months of use never had one get broken or slimy.

 

[Frood]

No issues with my drinking water. I bought Arizona tea in one gallon jugs and when empty I rinsed and refilled them from the water machines outside of stores. very stong water containers! I can't pick up a 5 gallon container of water so that size of container is not a viable option for me. I store the water in a lower cabinet and it stays both cool and fresh. If a jug ever got slimy, which in 18 months has never happened, I would just toss it out, buy a new container of tea and quickly I have a new water jug. Nice thick plasticc. Easy to use handle. I have in 18 months of use never had one get broken or slimy.

If you rinse them each time you fill them you should be good to go. Especially if you are storing them in a (mostly) dark place. The biggest issue for water is when it sits in an area with energy for micro-flora or micro-fauna to take advantage of. Letting containers dry out between uses, rinsing them out between fillings (with a little bleach added in when you add water to rinse them out even better), and not letting water sit for extended periods of time should keep you covered.

As a note, when using sanitizing agents, with Citric Acid you need to use a pretty high concentration and you need to let it sit/soak to kill microorganisms. Better to use the acid used by home-brewers which will do the same thing but take less time (I believe homebrew sanitizers use phosphoric acid). With acid-sanitization you are more likely to not get a pure sanitization though too... since a LOT of micro organisms like mild to moderately acidic environments. Fortunately these tend to be (not always but sometimes) not as harmful to humans (lactobacillus which we eat live all the time in sour cream, yogurt, or fermented pickles), yeast (present in beer, kombucha, bread, and some pickles), etc.

The biggest things you need to watch out for are harmful types of algae, dinoflagellates (the same critters that are responsible for red-tide which causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, which is why you can't harvest mussels and clams year round).

 

[Bunpoh]

Would hydrogen peroxide work as a sanitizing agent? I'm extremely sensitive to chlorine, and most other chemicals. Even when "rinsed thoroughly."

 

[rruff]

Would hydrogen peroxide work as a sanitizing agent? I'm extremely sensitive to chlorine, and most other chemicals. Even when "rinsed thoroughly."

Should work!

 

[RoamerRV428]

sanitize and start over with clean. like many posts said all water is 'alive' so.....at some point any water storage units must be maintainced. Learn, check, and put yourself on 'that water storage' cleaning maintenance that suits you.

 

[ClassyGlobal]

Five-gallon jug #1 went empty this morning, so I pulled the pump out of the jug on it's water hose to place it in still-full five-gallon jug #2. Pulling the hose out with my right hand, I let it slide through the fingers of my left hand. That's when I felt this thick, slippery slime all the way down the hose to the pump! The slime covered both the water hose to the pump and the 12v wire to the pump. (I didn't think to feel if the pump was slimy too. It probably was.)

Where on earth did the slime come from? What is it even? How do I get rid of it, permanently? It has no odor that my nose can detect, and it looked invisibly clear until I wiped it off the hose with a paper towel (which showed it to be light brown on the paper towel).

I'm afraid to take a swallow of my own drinking water when I have no idea what I would be ingesting from this water.

The only possible sources I know are:

View attachment 29813
1. I filled these jugs with fresh water from the bathtub faucet in a friend's apartment in Arlington, Texas. That water should be as pure as the city can afford to make it.

View attachment 29814
2. This is the hose I'm talking about. (Not the pump, because it went bad.)

View attachment 29815
3. The orange pump leaked water into its circuit board and died, so I replaced it with this blue pump, which has the electric wire that was slimy. I didn't think to check the blue pump itself for slime.

That covers all the sources I know of the slime could have come from. The wire and hose were in jug #1 for a couple of months, so I doubt this happened overnight.

If anyone knows the source of the slime, and/or has a cure, please fill me in on the secret!
Most of all, I don't want to get poisoned!

If you're sensitive to chemicals tho tedious the BEST to eliminate slime causing culprits is to DISTILL your water - they have drops you can add to remineralize & alkalize - While deployed we are only allowed to drink imported water - We once got a batch that was disgusting I ordered a distiller - I enjoyed the results as is - Every time & even the tastier water left white, yellow or pink THICK slime... Just a thought - There are DIY & premade distillation kits that don't require electricity as well... Good luck

 

[GotSmart]

I guess that I am the only country boy on here. We had tanks and tubs for the barnyard stock. They all would get an algae growth. I asked the veterinarian about that and was told that the algae was a natural disinfectant. They feed off of the bacteria and the water closest to the algae was the sweetest and purest to drink.

I agree that finding slime in a house system is disgusting but if you have not gotten violently sick before discovery, I would not worry. Plenty of ways posted to disinfect the system. (Kill off the natural purification system)

 

[rruff]

I guess that I am the only country boy on here.

Nope... but we didn't have livestock. Drank plenty of well water contaminated with farm chemicals though!

 

[Marcos989A]

I have read repeatedly that standing water in a tank should be used in ~4 days. Recirculating through filters with U\V can likely extend this but from what I have read not more than an additional ~10 days.
I think some chemicals need to be added with the maintenance circulation to get a substantial extension.
As I build my system I am going to have multiple tanks that can be isolated for maintenance.
No point in having a lg system if the water is contaminated quickly.

 

[Catalyst1]

Five-gallon jug #1 went empty this morning, so I pulled the pump out of the jug on it's water hose to place it in still-full five-gallon jug #2. Pulling the hose out with my right hand, I let it slide through the fingers of my left hand. That's when I felt this thick, slippery slime all the way down the hose to the pump! The slime covered both the water hose to the pump and the 12v wire to the pump. (I didn't think to feel if the pump was slimy too. It probably was.)

Where on earth did the slime come from? What is it even? How do I get rid of it, permanently? It has no odor that my nose can detect, and it looked invisibly clear until I wiped it off the hose with a paper towel (which showed it to be light brown on the paper towel).

I'm afraid to take a swallow of my own drinking water when I have no idea what I would be ingesting from this water.

The only possible sources I know are:

View attachment 29813
1. I filled these jugs with fresh water from the bathtub faucet in a friend's apartment in Arlington, Texas. That water should be as pure as the city can afford to make it.

View attachment 29814
2. This is the hose I'm talking about. (Not the pump, because it went bad.)

View attachment 29815
3. The orange pump leaked water into its circuit board and died, so I replaced it with this blue pump, which has the electric wire that was slimy. I didn't think to check the blue pump itself for slime.

That covers all the sources I know of the slime could have come from. The wire and hose were in jug #1 for a couple of months, so I doubt this happened overnight.

If anyone knows the source of the slime, and/or has a cure, please fill me in on the secret!
Most of all, I don't want to get poisoned!

It's called a bacterial slime layer. Bacteria create it. You've probably experienced it when you let vegetables in your fridge get too old. A little bleach through the system should clear it. Maybe wash with soap and hot water the parts you can reach and hold too.

 

[LargeMarge]

re -- the oft-quoted 'eighty decades'
I plead the oft-cursed 'fat fingers'.
.
*****
.
re -- peroxide to sanitize
2010 or so.
Aptos, California (just south of the coast resort of Santa Cruz).
There was a boutique water dispensary shop in a strip-maul (next to Safeway?).
A fair-size operation, the gal had a dozen or so spigots.
In an assembly-line, customers start at the sanitizer station with the peroxide tap.
.
I flushed my jugs [no jokes, please] plus my lids [no jokes, please], assembled them loosely, shook, dumped.
At the water tap, I rinsed both with RO before filling.
.
A nice person furnishing a valuable service.
I hope she was/is successful.

 

[Tango]

I have a small fountain with a pump. I sometimes gets slimy. I then take it apart and soak it in water with vinegar. Does the trick every time.

 

[CosmickGold]

I have a small fountain with a pump. I sometimes gets slimy. I then take it apart and soak it in water with vinegar. Does the trick every time.

I used citric acid on my slimy pump and in the container with some water, shaking it to splash the mixture everywhere inside, then rinsed and refilled with water. It's been a year since I did that and still, NO MORE SLIME!

 

[gizmotron]

Where on earth did the slime come from?

Earth

 

[maki2]

The OP had the issue in December of 2021. I would imagine using the good advice given by forum members when they first posted the problem they have dealt with their issue by this end of July 2022.

 

[Ripper238]

View attachment 29824Good plan. That's exactly what I'll do today, except I'm using Citric Acid instead of Chlorine Bleach. Citric Acid is on the EPA's list of safer disinfectants. It also is said to be helpful in ways Chlorine Bleach is harmful.

(But don't have chlorine bleach anywhere around when using Citric Acid, for the acid can turn Chlorine Bleach into a deadly monster, a gas that quickly results in serious lung injury or even death!) No bleach is going to be in my van; u'uh, nada, no way.

Bleach is the way to go. Its also very safe, just don't deliberately mix it with anything else but water. Low amounts of bleach (drops) can do wonders for purification and preventing slime and the like.

The OP had the issue in December of 2021. I would imagine using the good advice given by forum members when they first posted the problem they have dealt with their issue by this end of July 2022.

Looks like he went the creative rout rater then the tried and true bleach method used for hundreds of years.

I would not reamend purifying water with Citric acid.