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Hi Eisboch...
I have been using Raratan KO now for a couple of years on my boat and have been satisfied with it. However, the heads are Vac-U-Flush units and I typically have a pumpout every week or so therefore it is hard to judge how effective the KO treatment is. The type of toilet has nothing to do with what happens in a holding tank...the only thing ANY toilet can do is move waste from the bowl to the tank. However, whether pumping out every week makes any difference depends on the size of the tank. Recently I was watching "Modern Marvels" on the History Channel and the show was describing a huge waste water treatment plant. Several large containers - basically huge holding tanks - called "Digestors" are used to process the waste water. The Digestors are charged with live bacteria that eats up the solids - similar to how KO is advertised to work. The digestors were described as being heated to 120 degrees to activate the bacteria. Without the heat it would take years for the bacteria to reduce the solids according to the show narrator. I saw the same show. There are all kinds of bacteria, specifically cultured to accomplish different things.Most can't stand temperatures above 120 F--in fact, 120 F is the temperature at which milk is pasteurized. But there are "hardier" strains specifically cultured to withstand slightly higher temperatures. You also have to remember that these TV shows are aimed at a mass market that doesn't have (or need) an in-depth bio-chemistry education...so it's also entirely possible that the tanks are only heated to 119.7--barely below the temp that's lethal to bacteria...which producers of a show like Modern Marvels would round off to 120. There's enough material in "not all bacteria are the same and how different strains function" for at least two more similar shows! Onboard sewage consists only of organic matter (body waste) and flush water...anything that can do down a drain--including storm drains--ends up in a sewage treatment plant...not only organic matter, but petroleum, chemicals, rubber, plastics...you name it--if it can be flushed down a toilet or a drain, it is...and it all has be broken down and separated as part of sewage treatment. Sewage treatment doesn't completely emulsify everything either...the goal is turn as much as possible into liquid that's discharged...the remaining sludge is carried away to be spread on lands owned by sewage treatment plants. Why do they heat it? Because bacterial activity increases or decreases with temperature...the warmer it is, the more active they are and the faster they multiply, till the temp gets high enough to kill 'em (which is why holding tank odor is more a problem in hot weather than in cold weather). Conversely, the colder they are, the more sluggish they become...going dormant below 40 F. The increase/decrease in bacterial activity/mulitiplication is not a straight line, though...if you saw it charted on graph, it would be fairly flat from 40 F through somewhere in the mid-70's...then start to rise sharply with every degree. So the objective in a sewage treatment plant is to heat the tanks to JUST BELOW the temp that would start to kill the bacteria to make the li'l buggers the most active they can be, to get as much done as quickly as possible. Is Raratan KO effective without heating the tank? Yes. The bacteria in KO multiplies at the same rate as the bacteria in waste...so yes, it's affected by temperature, same as any other bacteria. It's cultured to work at ambient temperature, which inside the tank rises and falls with the temp of the flush water...solar heat or onboard heat warming the boat, or heat from engines if the tank is in the engine room etc. I noticed on the bottle that it warns against storing below 40 degrees... It also warns against storing where the temperature can rise above 110...for instance, in your car or a dock locker in the sun in which solar heat can produce temperatures close to 200 F...even higher. so I assume the bacteria is temperature sensitive. All bacteria is...but when it comes to preventing odor, oxygen is the "key ingredient" at any temperature...which is why those big tanks in sewage treatment plants are also aerated. -- Peggie ---------- Peggie Hall Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987 Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor" http://69.20.93.241/store/customer/p...40&cat=&page=1 |
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