NEEPS

Cassiepod · Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:04 am Post subject: Bugs in water system

Hello all, long time no chat, I've been lurking but sooo busy haven't been able to make any of the meetups.

I'm not sure the best location for this question but here seemed best. We noticed last night that when running our water there are a number of small black bugs in the water. They're about 3 or 4 mm long and only 1 or 2mm wide, they look like they have a hard shell. Does anyone know what they might be?

In our house because of the poor water pressure we have two cold water tanks in the loft and the majority of the taps (including the kitchen

) are gravity fed from these tanks. We're not sure if the bugs are in the tanks or in the water coming into the house, I'm pretty sure we're at the end of the water line.

At the moment we're planning to drain the water tanks down each night, suss out bug content and refill the system to see if it's something we can flush out of the system. Does anyone hae any experience of this or advice to offer? It's a rented house and I'd like to try out what we can before calling the landlady.

Many thanks, Cassie

pete_inthehills · Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:21 am Post subject:

Are you on the mains or a private water supply?

Are the bugs alive or dead?

We have our own well and we discovered after we'd bought the house that we were getting bugs in our filters. These weren't small ones. These were caddis fly lava.

They didn't seem to be in the well, but there were definitely coming in from outside and weren't in our water tanks. They were getting caught in the filtration system just inside the house.

Can you get up and have a look inside the tanks? Do they have good lids. Ours had really crappy plastic/cardboard lids and things would fall in to them.

Your bugs might be living in your loft and falling into the water tanks.

You need to try and determine where the bugs are coming from.

does this help?

pete
inthehills
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Pete
www.beggshillbothy.co.uk

mike and louise · Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:56 am Post subject:

They aren't midge larva are they, they lay in still water and will drop eggs in bucket left sitting or anything else available.

Cassiepod · Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 11:46 am Post subject:

We believe we are mains supply with an additional pump in the field behind us to get it up to the house.
We will have to look in the loft, if it's a displaced lid that's actually the easiest to solve but I put in extra insulation not that long ago and it all looked weill covered then.

I'll try and get a pic of the bugs, but they seemed to have a defined head and body section, they were all motionless which comforted me slightly.

Thanks for the responses.

Welly · Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:30 pm Post subject:

This is just a guess, but looking at the problem logically, the bugs are either getting in from the supply somewhere, are in the tank already (somehow), or falling into the tank from outside of it somewhere.

Vague I know, but bear with me...

It may be faily easy to identify if it is the supply by holding or suspending a fine mesh/sieve under the tank inflow while it fill up.

If you have a setup with a float switch (pump switches on when water level is low, off when it is filled up) then this should be straightforward enough. The beauty of this is that the tank will take a while to fill, so if the source of the bugs is some distance away, there should be enough water flowing through to bring them in if they're coming at all.

Next, I would check to see if they are actually in the tank at all. This may sound silly as it is unlikely that they could be coming out of the taps if not in the tank first, but it might be worth a look anyway. Using the same mesh/seive, just sweep it around in the tank for a while. You might not want to run the water for 10 mins or so afterwards, as this 'sweeping' motiong' will no doubt agitate any muck sitting in the bottom of the tank. You'll want to wait until that settles before you brush your teeth!

As you have two tanks, you'll need to check both presumably.

If you look outside the tank(s) as Pete suggests, you may see a source there. If not, I suppose it is possible that whatever caused them (this unusual weather?) has passed, and that by clearing the tanks out and refreshing them with fresh water might sort it. The tanks won't empty completely as the outlet is usually a couple of inches off the bottom. You may have to do the last bit by hand.

You could try syphoning it with a short lenth of hosepipe. This would actually suck any of the muck off the bottom too.

Not sure if any of that helps in the slightest, Cassiepod, but it's what I'd do if we had the same problem.

Welly
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JumbleJim · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 9:04 am Post subject:

Without a photograph an identification is just sheer guesswork, but in a loft, a hard carapace (shell) like body, distinct head and body, and the size quoted and colour......most likely to be dead woodworm beetles which have fallen into the tank and drowned (no real health risk).

I have quite a bit of experience in this line since I used to teach and train pest control people and also carry out water purity testing (and I have my own problematical water supply). Remember, it's not the bugs you can see, but the ones you can't that you really need to worry about (such as cryptosporidium), hence the need to have a UV treatment system if there is any chance of outside contamination (but not to worry in this instance).

baldowrie · Neepster Joined: 21 Jul 2007 Posts: 1159

If you are on mains water and the bugs are not from your own tank call the water company immediately