About cleaning of pee valves

[WhiteSands]

Hi
When you clean the pee valve with the alcohol/vinegar mix, do you follow that up by rinsing with water?

Or is the mis all you use?

Was having a discussion about this with my dive buddies and opinions were mixed.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

If it's before the dive I generally do a rinse with pee.

After the dive, chemicals only. Water would feed any bacteria left in the tubes and it's a generally pretty chemical resistant tubing, it doesn't seem to cause any harm.

Rinse after the dive, rinse before the dive, and have health insurance for when you do get a UTI!

 

[WhiteSands]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[TSandM]

I wouldn't rinse with water after the disinfectant. But I would (and try to) rinse copiously with fresh water BEFORE using the disinfectant. As we say in surgery, "The solution to pollution is dilution." The more of the urea you can wash out of the system, the less substrate is present for bacteria to use.

 

[kwinter]

I use a bleach solution and then always rinse with fresh water. I don't see a problem with the fresh water after the bleach. The bleach solution is mostly water (9:1) and it removes the smell. But I may have to rethink the water rinse now.