13 Water Problems Your Toilet Tank Might Tell You About Your Water

One problem we often hear about is unpleasant odors from some. However, not all of the fixtures in the house when it comes to Toilet Tank Problems.

For example, the upstairs bathroom shower has a bad odor, but the downstairs kitchen or bath have no odor.

This can be caused by bio-films of iron and/or sulfur bacteria forming in certain sections of the home plumbing that is not used as much as other sections.

Some wells have high levels of these bacteria which metabolize sulfates in the water and produce hydrogen sulfide gas, which give the water the terrible ‘rotten-egg’ odor.

(If you want to learn more about dirty water, check out this post)

How To Fix Your Toilet Tank Problems?

Step 1: Shock Chlorinating The Well

First, by shock chlorinating the well you can reduce and/or eliminate the activity of the bacteria in the short run.

However, these bacteria live in pipes inside bio-film, which is a microscopic gelatinous coating, in which they live in and multiply. Some pipes in the home that are not used as much as others, will allow these bio-films to form and for the odors to come back.

How can you tell if you have iron bacteria you may wonder?  One way is by using an iron bacteria test kit and actually testing for it.  The other way is by looking in your toilet flush tank!

Simply remove the lid on the toilet tank and look inside. Some signs of iron or sulfur bacteria are slime, a stringy material growing out from the sides, or bubbles/froth on the top of the water in the tank.

Besides iron bacteria, your toilet tanks can tell you if you have copper corrosion (blue water) or sediment or other contaminants in the water:

For bacterial problems, we recommend a series of chlorine shocking the piping, once a month for several months.

Eventually, this will eliminate the problem.

Step 2: Disinfection System Using Chlorination Or UV Light

If you find it won’t go away, you can also install a disinfection system using chlorination or UV light to destroy the bacteria as they enter the home from the well.

Also, perform an inspection of your water heater by draining the water heater and removing and inspecting the anode rod.

If the anode rod is worn or severely corroded you can replace it with an aluminum-zinc type, which may help reduce the odor problem from the water heater.

We hope this information helps you solve your problems if you have any further questions you can reach us at support@cleanwaterstore.com or on Facebook, happy flushing!