I have had my Camelbak bladder (3l) for about a month maybe two and it gets used at least weekly. Everytime I get back I empty any remaining water and dry it BUT I have now found fungi in the tube and bite valve. I have tried SIGG bottle cleaning tablets and wiping the bite valve inside with a cotton bud but its still growing. I don't want to use it anymore without curing this problem - any one got any ideas?

Milton possibly!!!

Jan, the best way of preventing it happening in the future, is to empty it on returning from your days activities, roll it up, put an elastic band around it and put it in the freezer. Just get it out when you need it next. If you are away for a few days just keep it full and ensure the tube has water or flued in it.

Jan, BTW when I say 'If you are away for a few days' I of course mean away from your freezer. Don't put the bladder in the freezer with water in it or it mey burst.

I've had the same problem. I just sterilized it with milton and cleaned the pipe with a make-shift cleaning rod ( a length of paracord with a knot at the end)and rinsed it though with more milton. Good as new!
(Once I forgot to clean it out - never again!! Water should never be chewy!!)

Soak it in high concentration sterilising fluid. For the tube, I hate to admit it, but the Camelbak, or similar cleaning brushes are the biz if expensive.

Using energy drink makes things even worse and the microbes obviously find it an ideal food source...

I just use cheap denture cleaning tablets for cleaning water bottles. You can put as many tablets in as you want to increase the strength. They're probably much cheaper than outdoor company branded cleaning systems and yet the same or similar chemicals (I think Supermarkets do cheap own branded denture cleaning tablets). With a bit of jiggery pokery you can probably sterilise a bladder system with all its pipes and things, just the same. Saying that, it's probably worth investing in a pipe cleaning brush aswell for the tubing.

Or replace it with the lovely newly revamped Platypus Big Zip :o)

PS The wee Camelbak brush is great.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I now have an excuse for going to the gear shops (I need a brush thing)

When you have finished using it, fill the bag and flush the tube thoroughly with a saturated soda bic. solution. Leave it in the bag for at least 1 hour and when you empty it do not rinse with clean water. Rinse with fresh clean water before filling it for the next time you use it.

you could always go to a homebrewing shop and get the stuff used for sterilising home brewing kit. I used to use SDP or for cheapness Sodimu Metabisulphite which is £2-£3 for half a kilo. It it can stop fungi developing on brewing kit it should kill anyhting you find in a camelbak

Hey,
You could kill two birds with one stone there Bill. If you have Tinea Pedis (before you ask, no I haven't got a cold) you could treat it with Potassium Permanganate soaks. Sodium Metabisulphite solution will remove the consequent yellowing of the skin.
How about that for really useful knowledge?

Mac - Mycil powder is good for that but I'm not putting it in my platy
lol

Never thought of that. It is a fungicide isn't it? lol

I notice some people use emoticons but they turn up here as keystrokes. How do I turn them on?

errr, you type in the keystrokes!!!! ;-)

Gawd! I know that but what I'm saying is they don't appear here as emoticons.

yep, there are no emoticons on OM, so you can't turn them on so all you can see are the text versions.

It's been requested as an impovement in the past but opinions on them are divided.

OK. Thanks. We had them on my professional association forums but they turned them off as being "unprofessional". Bunch of stuffed shirts I say. They can change the whole tone of a post. For the better.

They can so long as they are used in moderation, it irritates me on some forums where people use dozens of the things in one post.