Home Dunk Tank

[Charlie99]

So this summer, rather than hanging all of my gear on the clothesline and getting liberal with the hose and hoping I get everything clean, I'm thinking about buying a big 30 gallon garbage can with lid and filling it with water to dunk rinse everything.

Rather than either having to manhandle a 30 gallon garbage can when trying to empty it, or going to the hassle of having to add a drain and valve; why not look into using a couple of smaller cans. That also lets you wash the neoprene separate from the BC and reg (I'll let you guess as to why my neoprene gets its very own wash cycle .

What works for me is simply 2 sterilite containers, 58 quart size. Big enough to fit a complete set of gear between them. Small enough that it isn't a pain to fill and empty them each time. Often I'll even do a shampoo rinse of the neoprene and then a fresh water rinse.

 

[Packhorse]

I must be missing something here. Why do you want to keep the same water for a month? Do you do the same with your bath water? I just half full a garbage container with water rinse my regs, mask snorkel etc, then BCD and finally wetsuit. After rinsing all my gear the water is no longer fresh and I see no benifit in saving it.

 

[ManTeeRay]

Interesting thought here. I have been brewing beer for years now and we use a VERY dilute solution of Iodine to sanitize and kill any bacteria in/on the brewing equipment including a lot of the plastic and rubber items. After sanitizing with this solution it is safe and non-toxic to use the equipment without rinsing the solution out of the brewing vessels (just dump and fill). The product sold for sanitizing brewing equipment is called Iodiphor (spelling?) but, is the same as what IFA Stores or the Farmers COOP sell for cleaning Cow Utters (is not the kind of Iodine you use from the Pharmacy). It is used because it is less corrosive than bleach solution and in such dilute concentrations it doesn't impart off flavors. We have had some white rubber stoppers that became slightly discolored but I don't know if that was from years of sanitizing with Iodine solution or brewing rather dark beer. You would probably use an extremely small (almost undetectable) amount to just keep bacteria from growing in the water.

Maybe I'm off the wall on this idea. I have a chemistry background but have never looked into whether it would have an effect on Neoprene in extremely dilute solutions (just enough to help keep nasties from growing). Maybe I'll look into it. Anyone have any thoughts or input on this (besides that "I'm completely nuts")?

There are also some other very mild and safe sanitizing chemicals for brewing that are probably similar to sink the stink etc.

 

[Lake Mead Tony]

I am the CPO at a local resort, and when I plan on diving I start droping the PH to 7.2 and the ORP to 430 and use the pool to rince my gear out. After I am done I bring the chemicals up to a more resonable level. Our tap water here is 7.8 and that is pretty high to be rinsing in. Like was stated before, chlorine causes faiding and degrades the wetsuit material to say nothing of the lassiter valves in my regulator.

 

[Mandy3206]

After the first dunk, the water will be contaminated with salt, so the proper procedure is to dunk the gear in clean fresh water for at least 10 min to disolve the salt or grime from lake, quarry, ect. and then rinse it with clean water, then hang it to dry.

If you soak the gear and then hang it to dry, you only reduce the amount of salt left in the gear, but it wouldn't be removed totally, if you reuse the water, each time you dunk your gear, you'll be adding more salt to the water.

Use your bathtub or one $5.00 tub with ropes as handles from Kmart, you know, the ones that are used to store toys, ect. and use fresh water every time you clean your gear.

To facilitate cleaning of the gear, I throw the neoperene (wetsuit, booties, gloves, lycra skin) in the washer and add a bit of detergent, after the cycle is done, just hang the neoperene to dry, so far after 6yrs doing this, the neoperene hasn't faded and allways smells fresh.