A water question... Need Help

[Brookenstein]

I have one of those water tower things that I fill up the 5 gallon water jugs at the store and put on it so I have fresh hot/cold water.  With my recent back and J's neck injury we had been out of water for quite some time.  I decided to sanitize the jugs yesterday and since the tower had been sitting empty for a while collecting dust I decided to sanitize it to.  I ran a gallon of water with about a 1/2 cup bleach in it, let it sit for 10 minutes, drained it and flushed it with abotu 2 gallons fresh water.  I then went and filled my jugs.  I just got the kids some water and thought it looked discolored, so I filled an identical cup with tap water and there was an obvious difference.  I started draining the jug and the water color is getting worse (darker), not better.

Did I totally f this up?  Any idea what is going on or what I do to remedy the situation?

[In Canada eh]

Brook,

 The shock of chlorine may have loosened up some "gunk" that was attached to the walls in your cooler.  I would fill one of the jugs with tap water and flush the thing out real well.  Check again after that.

Sorry to make you or your husband lift one of those things again while you both are injured.

[Gomboman]

Brooke, I had the same problem a few months ago. My cooler sits near our back slider in the sun. It had a green tinge to it. I took my 5 gallon plastic bottle to my local water store. The owner put in a little bleach like you did. He put in about a gallon of water and swirled it around for a few minutes then rinsed it out several times with fresh water. He filled it up about a third of the way and rinsed it three or four times to get all the bleach out.

He did the same thing you did but he probably rinsed with more water. Do you have a water store nearby?

[ndabunka]

Brooke, I had the same problem a few months ago. My cooler sits near our back slider in the sun. It had a green tinge to it. I took my 5 gallon plastic bottle to my local water store. The owner put in a little bleach like you did. He put in about a gallon of water and swirled it around for a few minutes then rinsed it out several times with fresh water. He filled it up about a third of the way and rinsed it three or four times to get all the bleach out.

He did the same thing you did but he probably rinsed with more water. Do you have a water store nearby?

If your just "rinsing it out, why not simply use tap water.  It's not like you need bottled water for the rinse?

[Brookenstein]

Thanks for the input.

By the time I emptied the jug that was on there the water from the cold side was clear and the water from the hot (was soooo dark and nasty, almost black initially) was almost clear.  I just got home from work and am beat, so in the morning I will put tap water in the jug and rinse it out again.

Luckily I only filled the 5 gallons 3 gallons full, so they weren't too heavy.

[Brewman]

 When I use bleach as a sanitizer for my brewing setup, I use a couple tablespoons per five gallons of water.  Less than a quarter cup.  In five gallons.  
 This mixture is quite adequate for sanitizing- with a contact time of less than an hour to be effective.  Overnight, it will remove the most stubborn dried on brewing crud inside my glass fermenters.

Your 1/2 cup per gallon mixture was very strong- so it probably loosened up all sorts of crud that was in the machine.  I'd keep flushing with bleach and rinsing well until you are satisfied it's all clear.  

 Good cleaning, it sounds like.  Now you see what your water was running thru.

[Brookenstein]

So I put about 3 gallons of tap water in the jug and then let it sit on the tower for an hour or so.  When I first started getting the hot water it was almost clear, about a gallon later, it was getting darker and darker again.  The cold water was maybe one tinge darker than yesterday at the end, but still basically clear.

I'm not sure if I should just keep flushing it with tap water or if I should add a few tablespoons of bleach to it again.

[jfish63]

If you use bleach again follow brewmans info. I home brew also and use no more than 2 ounces per 5 gallons of cold water. A scoop from powdered iced tea is pretty close to 2 ounces.