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Soap Jelling like mucus...

brewer40312

brewer40312

New member
I have been having this problem for a while now. Every couple of months I have to clean out the strainer screen in the tank because of no soap. I do have heated water 110 degrees going to this compartment. Im not sure if this is a problem causing bacteria to grow in the soap or not. 119137240_685716058955260_3409324768533472938_n.jpg119206411_2731637720272939_1349867752133363103_n.jpg First picture is 9-3-2020, second is 9-13-2020 and last picture was 2-23-2019. Anyone have any suggestions?
 

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Get the tank completely clean, use bleach or boiling water to kill the algae, then cut a few lengths of copper pipe and leave them in the bottom of the tank. You might want to plumb cold water to it instead - 110° might be aiding the stuff in growing. If those together don't stop it, maybe try a different chemical or add an algaecide to it. I've also had good luck with keeping a spray bottle with about 3:1 bleach and water and spraying the inside walls of the tank once a week.
 
There is a possibility that one of your wax solenoids is slowly leaking internally, allowing wax to flow back up the soap line from the pump and mix with the soap. This occurs when the pump is idle for several hours...like overnight for example...especially if the liquid levels in the soap and wax tanks are not equal.

I spent several hours trying to figure out this same situation at a customer's wash back in 1995. I'm surprised I can remember that far back because I'm having trouble remembering what I had for breakfast this morning! 😂
 
cantbreak80 said:
There is a possibility that one of your wax solenoids is slowly leaking internally, allowing wax to flow back up the soap line from the pump and mix with the soap.
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I assumed this was his foam brush tank since that's where I've had the most trouble. FWIW I would think both the soap and wax solenoids would have to be bad since the spring pressure is equally effective at holding them both closed regardless of gravity flow.
 
Back in the day we had the same problem. What kind of soap are you using? At that time we were using Turtle wax and it was a pita. We’d only get the bacterial growth in the summer when it was hot in the equipment room. The bacteria grows best in a warm environment, I don’t recall the name of the bacteria, we sent a sample to Turtle wax and they confirmed it. We tried the copper pipe thing, we had almost 2 feet of copper pipe in the tank and we still had the snot problem. We ended up using 1” HTH swimming pool pellets https://www.hthpools.com/pool/pool-products/sanitize/1in-chlorinating-tablets-5lbs put a pellet in a pill bottle with a couple of holes drilled in, hang it in the soap tank, they’d slowly dissolve and no more snot problem. We’d change the pellet about every 2 weeks. After the Turtle wax soap was all gone we changed over to JBS Fonic wash and no more problems. You might try a different brand of soap. I use one of these mini vac pumps to clean out my soap tanks https://www.pentair.com/en/products...-simer-m40p-04-mini-vac-utility-pump-kit.html along with a green scrubbie pad.
 
MEP001 said:
Get the tank completely clean, use bleach or boiling water to kill the algae, then cut a few lengths of copper pipe and leave them in the bottom of the tank. You might want to plumb cold water to it instead - 110° might be aiding the stuff in growing. If those together don't stop it, maybe try a different chemical or add an algaecide to it. I've also had good luck with keeping a spray bottle with about 3:1 bleach and water and spraying the inside walls of the tank once a week.
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MEP just out of curiosity how does the copper pipe help? Have you used this method for a while? Even when I clean out filter every few days between the foam brush tank and flojet i still get junk caught in solenoid that keeps it open and leaks soap. Getting aggravating
 
I had that problem as well. Cleaning the tank and copper pipe worked great for me. I just lopped off about 2" of a piece of scrap 1 1/4" pipe laying around. I did sand all of the finish off the pipe first, like a plumber would do before soldering.
 
traveler17 said:
MEP just out of curiosity how does the copper pipe help? Have you used this method for a while? Even when I clean out filter every few days between the foam brush tank and flojet i still get junk caught in solenoid that keeps it open and leaks soap. Getting aggravating
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Put a strainer on the discharge of the tank, I use a 50 or 80 mesh strainer on all of our tanks.

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I.B. Washincars said:
I had that problem as well. Cleaning the tank and copper pipe worked great for me. I just lopped off about 2" of a piece of scrap 1 1/4" pipe laying around. I did sand all of the finish off the pipe first, like a plumber would do before soldering.
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I used 1/2" because it's what I had, cut three pieces about 8" long. I put them in the tire cleaner tank for a few days which cleaned them inside and out.
 
I also have the same problem with gelling. It only occurs in the hot summer weather, so it's not a constant problem. For 8 months of the year here in Canada it's cold enough to prevent it. I'm doing the copper pipe experiment, with one mixing bucket with a 1"X 3" freshly sanded piece of copper and one bucket without. I have cleaned both buckets with an algae killer and put both back in service. This is close enough to a double blind test that the copper question should be answered. I'm interested to see if the copper does work. I wonder if this is really algae or product breakdown due to the warm water/evaporation of summer.
 
My guess is simply cheap soap. Most are not aware that many manufacturers actually use animal fat in their blend. Let that sit around and, voila, snot. Used to see it all the time in FL. You do not save money with cheap products.
 
I keep some liquid bleach around the wash and occasionally put a capful of bleach in with the foam brush soaps both concentrate and diluted sides and keeps it algea free.
 
We use JBS Action foam brush soap and have never seen this at our wash and it gets into the 90s inside there. Maybe they put something in the soap to prevent this.
 
I would plumb in cold water. Just like in a spa those temps are prime for all kinds of bacteria, fungus, algea growth.
 
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