Marine diesel storage tank filtration

[Stephan Szymanski]

Hey everyone!

Was referred to here by SBMar for guidance on my question –

This site has been a fantastic resource and helped me with taking care of our 1913 wooden motor yacht https://www.sbmar.com/articles/marine-fuel-filtration-the-seaboard-way/

I was wondering – has anyone performed this technique with diesel tank filtration on land? We have a 3000 gal diesel tank at our marina that’s approaching 20 years old and has never had a cleaning, according to a local fuel polishing company – it doesn’t have the proper access for that. It only has one waterbloc type filter on it and after speaking to another fuel tank company to eventually have this tank replaced, they only suggested the one filter… We’ve never had any issues with our marina forklift, diesel equipment, or dry storage members vessels, however I was just thinking in terms of prevention that it wouldnt hurt to have advanced filtration on the tank.

Would this application benefit from moving from one filter to a two or three multi stage filtration system ?

Thank you everyone!

Topic

[Stephan Szymanski]

Thank you David!

Our tank does hold fuel for a long time, our marine fuel tank exchanges 4-5k gallons a month, however in the diesel we consume maybe 200-300 gal a month

Thank you

[David Wesner]

IMO, it’s not needed. The tank is on land away from the sea, multistage filtration before an engine makes sense, but just to move it…no. A single bulk/water separator is all that is needed.

The amount of fuel exchanged through that system is probably pretty high, so that in itself is a huge benefit. Tanks that hold fuel for a long time without new fuel being introduced have a bigger risk of fuel problems.

[Author]

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