Stored water has white floating stuff in it?
Posted by YourHighness1087@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 32 comments
Hello all, like the title says, I've just checked some 5 gallon jugs that I filled a month ago at the water machine. Jugs where clean. Got white stuff floating around.
Is the water machine dirty? Bad stuff in the water?
andy1rn@reddit
I've used the refill machines for water for years. Yikes, for 22 years now. I've NEVER had white stuff floating around. I'd assume it was from the bottle prior to putting water in it - or from bacterial growth. Either way, I'd 100% toss that water and sanitize the water bottle.
YourHighness1087@reddit (OP)
I'm tempted to use the water to wash my truck, and rewash the jugs with dawn ultra dish soap, then refill. I'm worried about not having water stored. Anything can happen these days lol
WardenWolf@reddit
Don't use soap. Just put water in and put a little extra chlorine in than is needed to sterilize them, close them up and shake them up, then empty, rinse, and refill.
YourHighness1087@reddit (OP)
I don't have chlorine is bleach right? I have that
WardenWolf@reddit
Chlorine is bleach. Note that liquid bleach has a shelf life. Powdered pool chlorine does not. You can do the exact same thing with both, it's just a matter of figuring out the amounts.
mistahclean123@reddit
Powdered pool chlorine is also EXTREMELY concentrated and caustic. I read so many horror stories on Reddit about that stuff chewing through metal hinges and destroying a Berkey water filter store next to it that I don't even want to touch it.
WardenWolf@reddit
This is why you store it away from other stuff and somewhere it's protected from moisture. It's pretty safe until exposed to moisture.
andy1rn@reddit
Dish soap will help, but it won't kill any bacteria or other growth you have in the bottle. If you're only using the water for flushing the toilet - no problem.
If you ever plan to drink out of that bottle, please do yourself a favor and add 2 tsp of fresh chlorine bleach (not scented, and no older than 6 months) if it's a 5 gallon bottle. That should kill anything in there. Then toss the water, just to be safe.
You can refill it after you sanitize the bottle with bleach. You are smart to be prepared, just be sure you don't kill yourself doing it. I'm sort of kidding, but do toss the water. It's not a water emergency at the moment. Be safe and smart.
WardenWolf@reddit
I recommend tossing the water, putting fresh water in, putting the bleach in, then shaking it up. Then you rinse it with clean water. Finally, you fill with new water, put the right amount of bleach or other water purification solution in to sterilize it, seal it up, shake it, and you're done.
YourHighness1087@reddit (OP)
I have the bleach, will do it this weekend
WardenWolf@reddit
By using bleach or chlorine, you're not introducing extra stuff like soap to the container that you wouldn't already be adding. It just avoids further contamination and taste issues.
Jbuggy_ZZ17@reddit
Get some 3% peroxide & put it in the bottles & shake it around. It’s non toxic & will kill any bacteria or mold.
YourHighness1087@reddit (OP)
I have that too. Will try if I don't have enough bleach left in the house
smsff2@reddit
I have never seen residue in the water from a refill machine. However, white flakes in spring water are minerals. For example, if you boil spring water, those minerals form a residue that looks like white flakes. The same thing can happen if you store spring water for a long time. If you want to avoid this, buy distilled water instead of spring water.
YourHighness1087@reddit (OP)
It's the water
WardenWolf@reddit
Just get a BPA-free hose and use tapwater, then put in the right amount of chlorine to preserve the water, close it and shake it up. No need to get fancy. Distilled water is also a bad idea; it can leech minerals from your body.
JRHLowdown3@reddit
Distilled is going to be more versatile also- use in batteries, etc.
CopperRose17@reddit
This recently happened to us. I thought it happened because the plastic bottles were sitting directly on the garage floor, but that's just a guess. How were your jugs stored?
YourHighness1087@reddit (OP)
5 gallon square jugs sitting strictly on our concrete garage floor. Dark, sometimes warm climate.
CopperRose17@reddit
Hmm. Our climate is hot most of the year. We are using 7 gallon square Aquatainer bricks. The best thing for me to do would be to check if any of the white stuff got into jugs that weren't directly on the floor. My husband recently rotated out the water, but won't remember which jugs the white stuff came from. He won't fill them from the hose, and buys the water from a machine. He won't be happy with me. LOL I've been told not to put them directly on a concrete floor. I'm looking for something to put them on that would take the weight.
YourHighness1087@reddit (OP)
Good to know. Thank you, I'll put them up off the ground after cleaning and filling. See If that works.
Paranormal_Lemon@reddit
What is a water machine? Do you mean you filled from a filter in a store, like a reverse osmosis machine? They remove the chlorine so you don't want to store that water more than a week or two.
YourHighness1087@reddit (OP)
It's those vending machines that charge .25cent per gallon, they are everywhere here in my city. Supposed to be reverse osmosis filtered with UV
Paranormal_Lemon@reddit
BTW if there is no TDS meter on the machine you can get one on Amazon for a few dollars.
Paranormal_Lemon@reddit
So we have one in whole foods with a TDS meter, it comes out 10-20 ppm TDS, which is plenty for something to grow, it could possibly be mold. I would not expect it to be any mineral. The UV mostly sterilizes the water but you can't get a container 100% sterile and fill it without a clean room, there are microbes in the air and it literally only takes a second for them to get in. Those commercial RO machines typically have a TDS reduction of 90-95% vs 98-99% for a home machine.
juancarlospaco@reddit
Microplastics.
YourHighness1087@reddit (OP)
The jug was washed and rinsed prior to filling the first time. I don't think any plastics was in the filtered water
CopperRose17@reddit
This is what we did. No soap was used, just rinsing and filling. I planned to use chlorine bleach before drinking. It might be plastic, which is scary.
MolecularLego@reddit
If he can see it, it would be macroplastics
I_VAPE_CAT_PISS@reddit
Mineral precipitate, usually calcium carbonate from whatever was left in the container before you filled it. Totally harmless, just looks gnarly. Run the jug through a rinse cycle next time before storage and it stops.
Paranormal_Lemon@reddit
It's from a RO machine, should not have any carbonate if it's working properly.
DeafHeretic@reddit
Probably this.
I know I have calcium in my well water - it gets deposited on everything. Same with iron.
I recently got a Zero filter and have been using it to reduce the iron sediment. I recently added coffee filters to pre-filter the iron sediment to make the Zero filter cartridge last longer (this seems to work as the coffee filter shows a lot of sediment).
I reuse beverage containers and I have seen the white flakes occasionally, even after running the water thru the filters. The calcium is soluble, so it makes it thru the filter. Calcium and other soluble things require further treatment besides filtering if you want to remove them.