Has anyone every heard of a fuel Algae?

I have been told, "If you shine a bright flashlight in your tank and you don't see shiny aluminum, you have algae." I did this on both my trucks.......had algae. Used an algae remover in the fuel. Keep a couple of extra fuel filters with you, you will need em! Unless someone is dumping dirt in your tanks, or you are buying very dirty fuel, algae would be a good guess. I would think to use up filters that fast you would have more than spots tho. Could be the bottom of the tank is a lot worse and you are picking it up there. Just an educated guess tho.

 

http://criticalfueltech.com/faq.html

http://www.powerservice.com/bk/

 

Find the Power Service Bio Clean, http://www.toolfetch.com/power-serv...393031363039&gclid=CPnUnKzUrL0CFS9p7AodIyoAYg


I had a similar problem recently, I had been putting about a bottle a year through just to keep it clean, but couldn't find it so went without, it finally caught up to me. I found a supplier near me carrying it and ran two bottles through and the problem is gone. It got bad enough I only got 1300 miles out of a fuel filter. I now carry an extra bottle in the truck.

 

This is starting to become more common. I'm seeing it crop up more often on the reefer side and our service advisor told me this. The fuel gets to maybe a 1/4 tank, and using the same high speed pumps at places like the Flying J or Loves hits the sump and stirs the algae up. While a big pain in the fuel filters of a big diesel, the primary screen on a Thermo King reefer plugs up and shuts it down. I asked why is algae even forming in the first place? He pretty much agreed with me that the ultra low sulfur fuels being used now is the culprit. Sulfur in the old days was used in medicine as an anti-bacterial agent (amongst hundreds of other uses over the centuries) and I believe that removing that has allowed the algae to begin growing in the fuel. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't recall this type of issue before the new fuels were common.

 

I've had a bad batch of fuel once with algae in it, and this was when we were getting hit with the polar vortex with minus 30 temps. Gelling fuel and algae. What a combination!! Had to grab a spare filter to use when the current one waxed up.

Powerservice has an algae remover as someone else posted the link.

 

The algae forms in bio-diesel. Bio-diesel is organic matter and allows the bacteria to grow if it sits long enough, combine that with the your fuel being hot and it's a breeding ground.

 

Algae and Bacteria in diesel fuel is nothing new. Problem has been around for a long time. you might be surprised the number of trucks with this problem

Have had this happen in two different trucks. It sucks fuel mileage and power.

The best place to get algae/bacteria killer is from a marine supply store. They use a lot in boats. Plus it be will be cheaper than a truck stop or shop.
You will most likely need to get 3 or 4 gallons or more of the stuff to start.

Start with a shock treatment, if the instructions say 1 gallon treatment to 400 gallons of fuel, use the whole gallon on 200 gallons, then cut back to half a gallon to 200 gallons of fuel til you can run out a few tanks without changing filters. Then cut back to a quart per 200 gallons. Run several tanks with the treatment. It will take time to kill off all the algae and bacteria in the fuel system.

When you change a davco style filter, clean the bowl with a small amount of algaecide on a clean paper towel.

Best to have 5 or 6 sets of fuel filters with you, your going to need them.


Ask me how I know this.........

 

In aviation we use a couple different products to add to the fuel for this problem, Prist and Biobore. I am sure similar to what the truck stops have.

Probably more expensive but who knows ???

 

@dennisroc beat me to it but basically algae has long been an occurrence in jet fuel which is essentially a much more refined diesel oil much like kerosene (hence the name "kerosene canary" for jets). In fact most every jet fuel tanker that pumps into airplanes has a Prist injection system built right onto the truck that adds it as it's pumping into the plane. With diesel becoming more refined (ULSD) the likelihood of algae forming is a greater concern.

There are many products on the market to treat, remove and prevent this demon. As someone else has said, a marine supply store has several products for this as would a business jet center and of course Power Service has their Bio Clean. I seriously doubt that bio diesel has much to do with it since it has been a problem in jet fuel since the beginning of the jet age which was long before anyone thought to burn french fry oil.

I'll bet that it has been occurring in diesel for some time but the more refined fuel combined with the finer micron fuel filters on modern engines has caused more awareness and problems. Jets aren't as susceptible to filter plugging because as my instructor at Flight Safety told me 27 years ago, if it will fit through that hole, pointing at the fuel cap, it will blow out through that hole, pointing at the back of the engine. He said that unless someone shoved an old shoe in the tank it will go out through the engine - tongue in cheek of course but he was making a point.