A Cautionary Tale- Extracting Foreign Objects from Black Tank

[BR549]

I could have simply posted my question, but I felt the whole story might be good for a few laughs.

I’ve found that I can get a thorough flush of my black tank using my garden hose to direct a stream of water through the toilet while dumping the black tank. The flush hose works okay but this has proven to remove a lot of residual solids. It has worked well until last week.

While preparing the trailer for winter storage, I also use the garden hose to fill the tank and add Dawn dish soap and Calgon water softener then drive around for a while to agitate the soap. Let it sit overnight and drain the next day for a reasonably clean tank. If soaking in Dawn will remove baked on lasagna from a baking dish, then it should work in the black tank.

I flushed the tank, had my water meter attached to the hose and began filling. I had a brass nozzle attached to the hose using a quick connect (https://a.co/d/5QOs2qW). The hydrant at our storage yard has really good pressure so all was progressing smoothly until…

My foot slipped off the toilet flush pedal which snapped the flush valve onto the nozzle. That sprang the nozzle off the quick connect and it dropped into the black tank. With the high flow from the hose, the toilet bowl filled in an instant as I was trying to pinch off the hose. Yes, I should have simply put my foot back on the flush pedal while pinching off the hose.

No joy on the nozzle coming out when I flushed the tank the next day. Option 2 is to leave it and risk that it will lodge in the outlet. Option 3 is to drop the coroplast and, since the tank is translucent, see if I can snake it out without removing the tank.

Any suggestions for removing objects from tanks?

[ncitro]

BR549 Thats quite the adventure. I do not think the black tank is going to be transparent. The fresh is but the holding tanks are (in my experience) black ABS plastic. I would keep filling it and flushing and hope you get it to rinse through. The valves and pipes are 3", so there is a good chance it should make it out. If you wanted to be sure your best bet would be a little boroscope camera.

[Jkwilson]

Raise the trailer off level to make the drain the lowest point by far. Then flush

[Jlawles2]

Hook the trailer up and drive around. Usually the drain is a low point and channeled. The driving around may allow the object to get in the channel then using a semi full tank open the drain and hope for the best.

My guess is the nozzle being round (guess here) either rolled into one of the corners or is laying in such a way that it cannot slide out the opening.