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Showing results for tags 'treating grey and black water tanks'.
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We are glad that we decided upon the Nature’s Head Composting toilet when ordering our Ollie. While our composting seems to have been going well (there ARE things to learn from experience and from paying attention to instructions on doing it well), I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to help with the process. I ordered the Sun-Mar product, which is advertised as an additive to speed up the composting process. I didn’t notice much of any improvement after using Sun-Mar for a month or so. However, our local RV repair shop recommended the TankTechsRx product for our grey water tank, and it worked MUCH better than the product we had been using to control odor coming from the sink and shower drains: Camco TST Lemon Scent RV Grey Water Odor Control. So, I decided to mix some of the TankTechsRX with water in a spray bottle and spray some periodically into the composting toilet. (One of the important things to learn about composting toilets is to keep the mixture at a certain moisture level—not too wet, not too dry. Adding coffee grounds, which helps with odor control, as well, is something we do frequently here in the dry Southwest.) TankTechsRX DID seem to speed along the composting process and help illuminate any occasional odor we experienced. I decided, however, to see if--by using a more objective measurement—this product actually did do what it seemed to be doing better than Sun-Mar (both TankTechsRX and Sun-Mar are advertised as containing a blend of microbes) and better than nothing by performing this experiment: 1. I placed a small amount (about 2 tablespoons) of my dog’s poop, gathered from the backyard, into three 8 oz bottles: a) one with water and about a teaspoon of Sun-Mar; b) one with water and about a teaspoon of TankTechsRX; c) one with nothing but water. I capped and shook the bottles briefly and set them outside. 2. After about 24 hours, I opened the bottles. I made the big mistake of getting my nose too close to the opened bottle containing nothing but poop and water. (My wife could hear me gagging outside as she sat inside the house.) The bottle with water, poop, and Sun-Mar was a bit better but still had quite a disagreeable odor. However, the bottle of water with TankTechsRX just smelled like TankTechsRX--which does not impart an unpleasant odor at all. Also, the “solid matter” in the TankTechsRX appeared to be more dissolved than that in the bottle containing Sun-Mar. I can now, with confidence, recommend TankTechsRX as an extremely useful addition to black and gray water tanks, but also as an addition to composting toilets. What we do is to make a solution of about 5 parts water to 1 part TankTechsRX in a small spray bottle that is kept in the bathroom cabinet and spray a bit of the mixture into the solid-waste part of the toilet each time we use it, and of course, give the spider handle a few good turns as usual. You should just follow label directions when using TankTechsRx in black and grey water tanks. I hope that my gross experiment might be useful for folks who use—or are thinking of using—a composting toilet, and for all folks with grey and black water tanks.