Dave,

I'm glad your system is working out for you. I'm sure you know best.

However, it's worthwhile to consider the biology of a septic system.
Unless you are completely drying out your system, you will always have
some water in it, and unless your system sterilizes the waste, you will
always have some bacteria in that remaining water. It doesn't matter how
much clean water you pump through - some water will remain in the system
and that water will be contaminated with bacteria (hence the term
"septic" system). It's up to the user to decide where that contaminated
water will reside. With a pickup tube, there will be liquid in the tank,
but the pipes will (or should) be dry. With a bottom drain, the tank
will be empty, but liquid will remain in the pipes and/or hoses. In the
pipes you can only have anaerobic bacteria because no air can circulate.
(Anaerobic = stink.) In the tank you can have anaerobic bacteria or
aerobic bacterial, but you can get air in to kill the anaerobic one and
encourage the aerobic ones. (Aerobic = no stink + breakdown of any
remaining waste.)

Your boat is your boat, and I'm sure it smells great. It's the cruiser's
prerogative to sniff at "authorities" (pun intended), but it might be
worth one's time to consider the experience of people like Peggie Hall
(and others) before making general statements about certain ways of
doing things being "wrong".

Cindy


dave # mybajaspot.com wrote:
> Peggie Hall, You are wrong about placement of the drain hose. This should be
> on the bottom of the tank, the tank and hose are rinsed free by flooding the
> tank with salt water to wash it out. This will clear the tank and the hose
> and or pipe to the macerator pump. These tanks are not design correctly and
> do not provide for washing out, this feature is easily added by plumbing a
> SW or even a FW line to the top of the tank, NOTE drain on the bottom!!!
>
> Dave
> S/V Bella
> Ensenada, BC, Mexico


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Received on Mon Sep 12 19:04:04 2005