Mother trucker. While shutting down Strikhedonia for a few weeks, I went to fill the port holding tank half way with water (how I leave it so that the tank does not dry out and the material in the bottom solidify). To my surprise it was completely filled. Fuck me. It had drained a week before, as I had watched its contents empty as we sailed along. But at some point after that, it decided to not play nice. Below is what I did to fix the issue with calcification of the holding tank due to urine and salt water interacting.
1. Pump out the holding tank
2. Fill head completely full with freshwater and drain into the holding tank, repeat three times
3. Flush the holding tank with copious amounts of fresh water (filling 1/4 to 1/3 full) before pumping out, repeating until it is mostly clean
4. Remove the following:
A. Pump out hose from the top of the tank,
B. Drain plug from the top of the tank,
C. Holding tank drain valve hose, and
D. Holding tank inlet hose
5. Spray freshwater and drain into a bucket using the holding tank drain valve
6. Rig up a long extension on to a drill with a hole saw bit
7. Break up calcification in the inlet tube of the holding tank using the drill, this requires coming at it from both the top and bottom – place a bucket to catch the debris and flush with water a number of times
8. Use a long screwdriver to break free additional bits and repeat steps 6 and 7 until the tube is 100% clear
9. Attached a hose to the holding tank drain thru hull valve and flush sea water into a bucket to ensure there are not calcified debris in the valve
10. Close the holding tank drain valve and add 3 cups of Barnacle Buster and 12 cups of fresh water – wait 48 hours
11. Using a bucket, drain the holding tank, fill with water, and repeat until the water is clear
12. Use a borescope to ensure the tank is now clean
13. Replace hoses as necessary, using 3M 4200 to seal all hose connections to the holding tank and to the holding tank drain thru hull valve
Tips from my failures:
1. A drill bit is absolutely necessary – I tried sharpened PEX tubing, a fiberglass batten, a plastic tube with an OD that matched the ID of the inlet tube of the holding tank, a metal tube, and screw drivers they DO NOT WORK
2. A small USB water pump was a great help to drain the head/holding tank hoses
3. Debris in the bottom cannot be vacuumed out – trust me I tried before using the Barnacle Buster
4. Be sure to tighten the fittings to the holding tank. Along the way the holding tank inlet hose fitting had become partially unscrewed and to my dismay I found a leak doing a test run. Since the hose had 4200UV adhesive at the holding tank, I had to disconnect the hose from the head and twist the hose while tightening the fitting with a wrench. An extra step I was none too happy about completing.
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