Water in holding tank smells awful!

[garywilson]

Originally Posted by Regipuck

We filled our holding tank up before the last hurricane that got close to us (about 3-4 weeks ago) and it has been sitting in there ever since. Today I ran a little water in the shower for cleaning, but it smells absolutely horrible. About 6 weeks ago, we did the sanitizing of the tanks with the recommended bleach solution, but it clearly didn't work. Any ideas to freshen up the water? It pretty much only smells good when hooked up to City water.

Any ideas?

Under pressure, drain some water from the low point drains into a jug large enough to empty the line and get some 'fresh' from the tank.

Look for critters in the water... little larvae critters... especially if the weather has been warm.

[Cincinnati Kid]

We do all of that. We only use fresh tank while on the road, and only for flushing and washing hands.
We like full hookups, but that's not always possible.
When campground water seems ok, we add to the fresh tank.
Try not to let any tank water into your water heater. Use cold water on the road.
But as careful as we are, we had a serious stink problem this summer.
Don't know what happened, but we started from scratch and sanitized again.
No more problems. Even though we use the water for two or three weeks after we get home.
We just wrote it up as a one time thing.