Scuba FUNK

[swimrundive]

How to get rid of nasty dank scuba smells in your gear?

I know leaving it out in the sun all day works wonders but often times I come back from diving and it becomes night time. Given the area, I cannot leave my gear outside at night to dry without risking loss of good money.

I do come back and rinse my gear and leave it hanging in the bathroom but the next day the smell is pretty strong in there. It gets fixed if I don't have to dive the next day but sometimes thats not the case. What are some remedies you guys used?

 

[dmoore19]

I use Sink the Stink. It comes in different size packages. I usually take a couple of the small ones with me on a trip and soak/rinse my westsuit and stuff a couple of times a week while on the trip. I also soak my stuff using it when I get home. It works great. You can buy it online or almost every LDS I have been in has some.

Home Page of Sink the Stink

 

[Lee Taylor]

I remember the funk. I dont get it these days unless i have to put my wet gear in a car trunk. I submerge my gear after diving. Most of the time I fill the clothes washer with water, unplug it, submerge the gear and let it soak a day. I then hang it in the garage or an open area, sometimes outside. I dont have the funk any more.

I think what happens in the bathroom is the air gets 100% saturated with moisture and cannot absorb any more. At that point the gear will slowly start to smell more and more because it cannot release any moisture. Probably the smell is likely due to microscopic growth

 

[claymore]

Wetsuits are the worst for getting funky, booties especially. Products like "Sink The Stink" help eliminate the smells that gear collects. Soaking is better than rinsing.Soak, if possible, then rinse and hang up to dry, a fan blowing on the gear helps it dry. I am luck that I have a second laundry room in the basement, that I have claimed as mine, with a washer, a dryer, a laundry tub and a long bar to hang my gear on to dry.

 

[tbone1004]

the best solution for preventing this is to use a condom catheter plumbed through a small hole in the front of your wetsuit, but otherwise hanging in the shower is probably the best way, if you can get a fan on or leave the bathrom fan on for air movement it's best

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Even if you don't use the bathroom in the suit, organic matter can end up on it and it ends up smelling. Sink the Stink is great, I've switched to Odoban which doesn't use enzymes but does seem to have a similar effect on the smell. You can use it in a spray bottle and spray down your gear even if you can't hang it up, but hanging it up in a closed room with no air movement doesn't help the gear dry a ton. A balcony, garage, etc, anything helps, but if you have to leave it in the bathroom, can you leave the door open so air moves through the room?

 

[Incident]

Water and a small shot of Simple Green.

 

[Diving Dubai]

Never have Wetsuit funk.

I have 2 plastic garbage bins which I fill with water the night before the dive and chuck both mine and my wifes gear in them post dive. Wetsuits, boots, gloves etc in on, everything else in another. Having lids on each bin keeps cr@p out - in my case sand). I put some baby shampoo in each too (not much) Leave overnight - rinse and hang up the following day. I'm lucky to have an an outside store which is well ventilated and everything is normally dry within 24hrs. As we dive most weeks its easy to just ttake everything off he hangers and put straight back into the dive bag the night before the trip.

 

[swimrundive]

Good info guys! I'll have to do that and find some container bins to let it soak in solution. I don't pee in the wetsuit since sofla even on its "cold" days is just fine and doesn't require extra warmth.

The funk is coming from mainly lack of airflow really. I'll have to incorporate the sink the stink or baby shampoo solutions. Thank you!

 

[tbone1004]

flipping the wetsuit inside out is best for drying, not sure if you're doing that already, but flipping them inside out and putting them under a ceiling fan can work pretty well