Electrolysis

Could you just submerge your entire tank in a tub full of water and cleaning soda, connect a wire to the tank for the charger ground, drop the "electrode" in the tub and get the inside and outside cleaned?

Maybe the electrode would still need to "float" inside the tank?

ime the further away the electrode requires more time and less satisfactory the results.
After playing with electrolysis on 3 and milk stone remover on 2 I have since started using vinegar.

rider119 said:

Could you just submerge your entire tank in a tub full of water and cleaning soda, connect a wire to the tank for the charger ground, drop the "electrode" in the tub and get the inside and outside cleaned?

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Resurrecting a semi-stagnant thread here, but anyway . . .

Yep, This is pretty much exactly what i did with an XS750 tank I bought for my cafe project. If you value your tank's paint job, though, I don't recommend it. For my tub, I used an aquarium I had sitting around. Obviously, you don't want to use a steel tub -- even galvanized. I used my 1.5 amp trickle charger for the chore. it has the jaw-style clamps. Be prepared to have to replace the clamp that is holding the sacrificial anode, though. The process ate that clamp away to nuthin' If you could rig things up so that the clamp wasn't submerged, only the anode, then you won't run into the problem I experienced.

I found that, after several hours of submersion, the anode became completely caked up with the rust deposits and that the efficiency seemed to have fallen off. I wiped the anode clean, which seemed to get things back to normal. Your milage may vary. and all that.

MY results were mixed. After approximately 12 hours of electrolysis, there were still significant rust deposits in the tank. So I turned to my favorite standby, a product called Rust Cure. I poured a few ounces of it into the tank and sloshed it around for several minutes, then drained it and let it sit. The Rust Cure contains phosphoric acid, so it converts the iron oxide to iron phosphate, I'm guessing, which is an inert compound. This took care of it, but it left a rough surface in the tank.

Next time I have to do this, I think I'll give vinegar a try.

From the rust to the anode it works best line of sight. Electricity in water goes in a straight line.
Leo

XSLeo said:

From the rust to the anode it works best line of sight. Electricity in water goes in a straight line.
Leo

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Hrm . . . I got the idea from an article I found on the web somewhere. This guy filled his tank with the soda solution and, using a section of a coat hanger, suspended the anode from the gas cap opening. He had good results. As I recall, I decided on the easy way out because I didn't want to mess with plugging up the petcock holes. Live and learn . . .

Hey cooltouch, long time, hope you are doing ok.
The surface area of the anode also determines success.
Like cooltouch I found a wire anode quickly becomes covered and has to be cleaned.
If you tack some gauge metal to it for a larger surface area the cleaning time is reduced.
For reference pic 2 is wire only. Pic 4 is after attaching some flat plate to the anode (the rubber stopper is at the right)
The "fizz" didn't harm the paint.