Bob wrote:
:On Oct 11, 6:40 am, Martin Baxter wrote:

: There are people that are allergic to aluminum, and there are health
: risks of excessive aluminum consumption. But you get more aluminum
: from a couple of antacids than you do from years of drinking out of a
: water tank.
:
: Not to mention skin absorption from antiperspirants, sun block,
: moisturizers........

: Cheers
: Marty

:Hi All......

:Ya I guess I your right. Really cant argue against, "we are exposed to
:lots of it so it cant be harmful." Pretty air tight case Id say. Maybe
:we should also use that argument for lead and mercury. We could go
:back to lead water supply pipes and using mercury as a medicine.

Aluminum is the third most common element in the Earth's crust.
Nearly everything you've ever eaten has contained aluminum. That probably
includes the water out of your fancy stainless steel water tank, by
the way. Atmopsheric dust also contains large amounts of it.

Bangkok Bruce replied to a few people:
Interesting as most of the 3rd world cooks using aluminum pots and
alzimers (which was one of the most common ailments attributed to
aluminum) doesn't seem to be a major problem.

As someone who years ago traveled extensively in other countries (and
even lived in a few) I found that the populations of poorer areas
usually ate food - not the stuff some factory belches out or is raised
on a diet of chemicals, but things grown from the ground or raised on it
eating what is growing on it.
Alzheimer's is believed to be caused by an amaloid protein, and
aluminum is usually found in high concentrations in brains of its
victims, but unless things have changed in the last year since I've read
about it it is not believed to be a cause, just a symptom so far. Since
aluminum is found often in potable water and in many foods in varying
concentrations and yet is not usually found in the brains of healthy
people, I would have to believe that aluminum gets into the brain
because you are already doing something stupid - like chronically eating
chemical laden and processed foods (the ones the medical community in
the US keeps saying is safe for you), or doing something else that
invites the aluminum past the normally impenetrable (by alum.)
blood-brain barrier.
Red

Its so easy to put in access ports in an aluminum tank. Cut a square
hole, get 2"wide aluminum strips the same gage as the tank walls and
install as a sister flange using bolts as attachment studs, epoxy coat
the sister flange to the tank and then simply line everything, the
original cut out square used as the closure manhole/handhole. The
typical 100 gallon square tank in most boats are such that a human arm
can reach entirely across to the other side from an access port.
Honestly did you ever see a LARGE access port on a rotomolded tank that
didnt cost almost as much as the tank without an access port?

Without access ports there is NO way to get inside and mechanically
scrub off any biofilm (calcyx) ... and if there there is any calcyx
remaining, simple sanitization methods simply will not work. Access
port ARE simpler easier and cheaper to install /add to an aluminum
tank.

Mmmmmmmm most ballfes in fabricated metal tanks inthe marine industry
typically only have 5%-10% of the projected cross section open to
prevent 'sloshing' . A rotomolded tank would probably consist of
mostly deep Vs to accomplish the same. A rotomolded tank with the
typical baffle area and baffle 'exit' area form by deep Vs would be
absolutely preposterous while having little useful internal volume in
comparison. Sorry.

:-)

problem is on a normal baffeled tank of any size (under the size a man
can crawl thru the baffles) is painting it with a brush or roller is
next to impossiable, unless the tank has an inspection/work port in
every space between baffles. It's a great way to go if your building
tanks but expensive to do right. And roto mold tanks can and do have
baffles. They are made by molding deep V's into the sides of the
tanks.

Joe

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:28:33 -0000, Bob wrote:

On Oct 11, 6:40 am, Martin Baxter wrote:

There are people that are allergic to aluminum, and there are health
risks of excessive aluminum consumption. But you get more aluminum
from a couple of antacids than you do from years of drinking out of a
water tank.

Not to mention skin absorption from antiperspirants, sun block,
moisturizers........

Cheers
Marty

Hi All......

Ya I guess I your right. Really cant argue against, "we are exposed to
lots of it so it cant be harmful." Pretty air tight case Id say. Maybe
we should also use that argument for lead and mercury. We could go
back to lead water supply pipes and using mercury as a medicine.


You know, I wonder whether we aren't overdoing this terror of lead,
Mercury, zinc, this and that?

A couple of examples:

When I was in high school I worked a couple of summers for the Vermont
Forest Service and one of the projects was to re-shingle the barn roof
on the Calvin Coolidge homestead. The house was pretty well run down
by this time but we camped out in one room and cooked there. We found
that the water pipe from the spring, out back, to the kitchen was a
lead pipe. Since, as far as I know Calvin was born and raised in that
building he drank lead tainted water throughout his childhood. Seemed
to do all right in later life.

When I was a youngster my mother was a fanatic about oral health so I
have fillings that date back to the 1940's - made with "amalgam" a
mixture of silver and mercury. Don't seem to have developed any
strange symptoms in the years since.

This is not to say that I advocate drinking lead paint, sniffing zinc
fumes or anything like that but I do believe that this fear of any
exotic metals is carried to extremes.


Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:21:11 -0000, wrote:

There are people that are allergic to aluminum, and there are health
risks of excessive aluminum consumption. But you get more aluminum
from a couple of antacids than you do from years of drinking out of a
water tank.

Hey there,

Its not the same stuff

It's not? What exactly is the difference?

Casady

On Oct 13, 5:24 am, (Richard Casady)
wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:21:11 -0000, wrote:
There are people that are allergic to aluminum, and there are health
risks of excessive aluminum consumption. But you get more aluminum
from a couple of antacids than you do from years of drinking out of a
water tank.

Hey there,

Its not the same stuff

It's not? What exactly is the difference?

Casady

Look, I got better things 2 do bsides gettin n 2 alchemry wit ya. go
chew on an aluminium tank maybe 5053 aloy and then swallow a
Tums............. uhh, which dont have Al in it. The dif??? go back to
CHEM 201.
O, ifeel a hard 1 commmin down the pike...........gotta go.

On Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:45:17 -0000, Bob wrote:

On Oct 13, 5:24 am, (Richard Casady)
wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:21:11 -0000, wrote:
There are people that are allergic to aluminum, and there are health
risks of excessive aluminum consumption. But you get more aluminum
from a couple of antacids than you do from years of drinking out of a
water tank.

Hey there,

Its not the same stuff

It's not? What exactly is the difference?

Casady

Look, I got better things 2 do bsides gettin n 2 alchemry wit ya. go
chew on an aluminium tank maybe 5053 aloy and then swallow a
Tums............. uhh, which dont have Al in it. The dif??? go back to
CHEM 201.
O, ifeel a hard 1 commmin down the pike...........gotta go.

I take that to mean: 'there is no difference'.

Casady

On Oct 2, 7:41 pm, Jere Lull wrote:
On 2007-10-02 15:40:40 -0400, druid said:

I've always seen plastic watertanks, but the boat I'm buying has an old
aluminum one (I think it's alum: it's metal, and not SS). Is there any
advantage to alum over plastic or vice-versa? I'm planning on
replacing it with a bigger one, and first I thought plastic, but should
I consider aluminum instead? I've always disliked the "plastic" taste
in the water from a plastic tank.

I prefer aluminum over plastic and wouldn't replace a perfectly good
tank with a bigger one, but would add tanks in otherwise unused corners
of the boat.


(Wow - I really started a war on this one - sorry!)

All things being equal, I'd agree: add a tank rather than replace.
However, this is a 28-ft boat and there aren't a lot of options. The
existing tank is cylindrical, with no access port. And it's sitting
under the V-berth, where there's lots of room for more tanks.... if
this was was taken out. So my Plan is to remove the existing tank, put
in a platform where the old tank was, and put in His'n'hers water and
holding tank. I can't do that without removing the existing tank
(which sounds like not a bad idea anyway: better safe than sorry for
an unscrubbable, un-lineable aluminum tank!)

druid
"Coatue" Crown 28

Dave wrote:
:On Sun, 14 Oct 2007 19:01:34 GMT, (Richard
:Casady) said:

:Look, I got better things 2 do bsides gettin n 2 alchemry wit ya. go
:chew on an aluminium tank maybe 5053 aloy and then swallow a
:Tums............. uhh, which dont have Al in it. The dif??? go back to
:CHEM 201.
:O, ifeel a hard 1 commmin down the pike...........gotta go.
:
:I take that to mean: 'there is no difference'.

:Not a reasonable inference. More likely it means "You're an ignorant SOB,
:and I'm not gonna waste my time on you."

No, I think it is. The only other reasonable one is it means "I don't
know what I'm talking about, so I'll call people stupid, and when they
call me on it, go off in an illiterate huff."

On 2007-10-15 11:41:21 -0400, druid said:

On Oct 2, 7:41 pm, Jere Lull wrote:
On 2007-10-02 15:40:40 -0400, druid said:

I've always seen plastic watertanks, but the boat I'm buying has an old
aluminum one (I think it's alum: it's metal, and not SS). Is there any
advantage to alum over plastic or vice-versa? I'm planning on
replacing it with a bigger one, and first I thought plastic, but should
I consider aluminum instead? I've always disliked the "plastic" taste
in the water from a plastic tank.

I prefer aluminum over plastic and wouldn't replace a perfectly good
tank with a bigger one, but would add tanks in otherwise unused corners
of the boat.


(Wow - I really started a war on this one - sorry!)

Nothing to be sorry about. The thread ceased to be about the subject
very early.

All things being equal, I'd agree: add a tank rather than replace.
However, this is a 28-ft boat and there aren't a lot of options. The
existing tank is cylindrical, with no access port. And it's sitting
under the V-berth, where there's lots of room for more tanks.... if
this was was taken out. So my Plan is to remove the existing tank, put
in a platform where the old tank was, and put in His'n'hers water and
holding tank. I can't do that without removing the existing tank (which
sounds like not a bad idea anyway: better safe than sorry for an
unscrubbable, un-lineable aluminum tank!)

druid
"Coatue" Crown 28

Xan's also a 28, but we have so many unused corners, I forget that not
all boats do. (diagram on Xan's "interior" pages doesn't quite show all
our stowage.)

I'd say get Peggie Hall's book on sanitation, of course, and suggest
that you double the size of the holding tank you envision (ours is 40
gallons and sometimes we have to leave anchorages early). I've come to
agree with Ms. Head Mistress that the holding tank ideally should be in
the bottom of the "V", with two large vents to either side of the hull
for cross-flow.

I like the water tank(s) to be as far away from the ends of the boat as
possible -- while maintaining trim on the boat, so you may have to move
something forward from the transom in the process.

--
Jere Lull
Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips and tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/