Ice Cubes in Black Tank

What is all this obsession about a spotlessly clean black tank anyway? 40+ years of camping and I never did get that? For me a 5er of water down the toilet at the end of the season and good enough.

All well, scrub away you obsessive compulsive people! :B

I too did an experiment many years ago when I first heard of this "method". Being the inveterate skeptic that I am, I did the following: Put 5 gallons of water in a flat plastic bin. Bin in the shade with the ambient temperature at 81 and the water temp. at 78. Added a 10 lb bag of ice. It took precisely 4 minutes 17 seconds for ALL of the ice to melt and that with no agitation. Hardly enough time for most folks to get out of their driveways.

Now I know he drove like an idiot, but, reality is, I know my MH bounces around a hell of a lot more than my car, or his truck, does.

In addition, how big is the tank on his truck compared to the tank on a MH? I honestly don't know because I haven't seen one off a MH. When bouncing around, accelerating, stopping, if the ice has more distance to travel in the MH tank, that would cause more cleaning action upon collision with the sides of the tank. The ice didn't have much room to move in his tank.

I think this guy's trial failed because there was no water in the tank when he first placed the ice in the tank. The ice needs to be able to slosh around in order to work.
That was the first thing I noticed, he put all that stuff in a dry tank.

I have used ice cubes to clean the tank level sensors.

I do this after dumping the tank and flushing with the tank flusher.

Then fill tank about 1/2 full of water and 10-20 lbs of ice.

Drive for a 100 or more miles and purposely wag the trailer.

This has worked but the sensors start reading high all of the time after only a couple camping trips.

Thus the result is too short lived and I just keep track of water usage to determine when black tank needs to be dumped.

Use "Happy Camper", it dissolves everything! Keeps sensors clean!

TXcampingfamily wrote:
I've put ice cubes in our black tank from time to time. I ran across this video on youtube where this practice is tested. I thought some of you might find it interesting. :)

Genuine waste of time.

However, if that rings your black tank chimes (sensors?)... find a twisty mountain road, get to the top...ICE UP...and head down as fast as you dare.

Post results.

Watch for "Gee Whiz" and "attaboy" posts!!..:C

~

Do you all have lights down there to see what's happening? :)

All we use is plenty of water flushing. Easy.

We do this on a regular basis ... I would like to figure out how to get them in my gray tank.

I would have liked to see the contrast to a 24 hour soak and just a half tank of water, no ice.
And don't drive like a madman OK.

Then put in a tank rinse fitting and give that a go after the test.