Algae in fuel, what does it look like?

[schu777]

I'm wondering if anyone has pictures of what algae looks like in fuel. This last summer I'd fill up at the Flying J, I'd also take 2 five gallon jugs and the last time I filled up the truck with it, I noticed some brown in the bottom of the jug. By chance is

 

[Joe G.]

It looks like snot.

 

[schu777]

Snot?

LOL - Now with this cold I've had for the past couple of weeks, my snot has never looked like this in the container. Maybe later I'll get a photo of it and post it here.

 

[Joe G.]

When it's killed by biocide it turns brown. So if it looks like brown snot it could be dead algae.



When I was running a fish boat we had a hard time with that stuff. The previous owner managed to get the boat infected. It held 1000 gallons of fuel. So even the diesel stove got plugged up with snot. Later it was dead but it still plugged up filters and the stove.

 

[Champane Flight]

Dark brown

It will turn dark brown and not smell like good diesel anymore. Smells kind of like old socks, and it gells to a point.

 

[MABurns]

Not sure if DF2 algae is any different that JP8 algae but in our tanks it will look blackish.

 

[schu777]

I have the feeling that it is... now to get rid of it... what to purchase or how to get rid of this? I was going to take a picture of it, but the batteries died and I didn't have any spare at the time. Will post later.

 

[Bob Beauchaine]

Algae in Diesel and Jet fuel is a Surfactant - a surface active agent. It grows on the interface between water and fuel and gets its oxygen for growth from the water. It can be killed with a biocide but that does not get it out of the tank. We used to use bleach to clean empty tanks but we discovered that bleach is also a surfactant. The only way to clean algae is to wash the tank with high pressure hot water then completely dry it. It's very corrosive to aluminum and will disarm fuel filters allowing contaminated water through.



This is why I try to stay with high use stations like Flying J. They can't afford bad fuel going into OTR trucks.



Hope this explains algae a little better.



Bob

 

[Grey Wolf]

I discovered it during a fuel filter change about twenty years ago... . it was black and slimy. Got rid of it with a product called Biobor. Haven't seen any since then... and glad of it