By Kate Doherty
Recently I was privileged to meet Doctor Poop! This entrepreneurial inventor, Don Zimmerman, has a passion for all things poop! For the past 20+ years, he has traveled the globe analyzing bacteria. You know, the nasty stuff that creates sludge, clogs black tanks, stinks to high heaven, and makes dump day a poopy one!
By 2012 Don was working with biologists and microbiologists in trialing “hungry” probiotic bacteria eager to devour poop and kill its smell. He visited hog farms with biodigesters, animal corrals, and public baths, and tested thousands of poop-filled septic tanks.
As his research progressed, Don discovered that the Japanese were effectively moving da poop using a natural, toxin-free method. He began perfecting this methodology in a variety of circumstances. After thousands of successes, he began bottling his black magic concoction via word-of-mouth, an effective tool that started with the caveman.
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Testing our own Pac-Man poop eaters
Well before we met Dr. Poop, we were dissatisfied with the variety of black tank products we’d been using. We trialed several. None de-stinkified our tank and the poop dump! For instance, the citrus-smelling liquid contains calcium nitrate, which i’s typically used in fertilizers. How does that dissolve poop and toilet paper? The orange packets smelled good on Monday but had failed big time by Sunday. During our end-of-week “dump” process, we visually took note of little rocky road break-down and continued clumping of toilet paper, even septic safe and special TP.
We kept trialing new treatments. Each week my spouse looked around after the dump to see if there was residue left in the tank. Each consecutive dump revealed a slimy mess. After viewing and smelling waste gas, he effectively rinsed the tank adding new product per the manufacturer’s label. The orange citrus smelled the best, but the liquid alternative and septic enzyme crystals just didn’t do the job. We were disappointed in each.
Voila! Finally an all-natural, non-chemical probiotic treatment
We were introduced to TankTechsRx by a work camper and bought a bottle online. After reading its history, we trialed it the same as all others. After our first dump, we were pleased to see a different result: a liquification of the poop and toilet paper, and there was zero waste gas odor. And it only got better with each successive dump.
TankTechsRx smells plant-like or agrarian. It works, and the claim of it being safe for the environment satisfied us 100 percent after rereading Dr. Poop’s black magic cocktail has been used in the testing of 10,000 sights with fiber optic camera, further confirmed by the US EPA as to the outcome.
We ended the poopy smell with this black tank treatment
What was the personal outcome for us? As full-timers, two things are paramount to us: more storage and no poopy smell. Read the labels and you’ll see that most tank treatments add fragrances and chemicals to mask the smell, doing little to break down the odor. Some helped to reduce solids, but we had to use special toilet paper – which was hard to find between March and June 2020. In our experience, every time one of us flushed, the fragrant chemicals were diluted, becoming less effective with each flush. Lastly, all the treatments we had tested left sludge in the tank. That wasn’t cool!
Fix Fido’s poopy smell
The work camper who introduced us to this product regularly sprays his pet pen area, especially when one or both of his Cocker Spaniels pooped, before disposing of it. He can sit outside without turning up his nose.
TankTechsRx ended our black water smell and no off-gassing. Everything dissolved and we did not need to use special dissolving TP. We do, however, use septic-safe TP. For the past 10 months, we’ve had no sludge or solid buildup. Best “crap” we have used. Try it and hopefully you will have the same outcome!
You can find TankTechsRx on Amazon here.
Related:
Avoid black tank “pyramid” problems
##RVT998
I’ve been using Happy Campers for over a year now, and highly recommend it. NO smell, TOTAL breakdown (no discernable paper or chunks when dumping), no perfumes or dyes.
Oh, and I use “normal” (not “RV”) toilet paper.
Just checked Amazon: This product is no longer available and they don’t have any timeline for its availabiiliity.
I wanted to try this but as Lanell said – not available.
This product is now listed under a new company named Just Science. Available at JustScience.com and Amazon
We’ve been using Tank TechsRx for a few years now and it’s just as good as you write in your article. Plus our sensors still work.
And, like normal people, we use toilet paper and flush it right down the toilet. In fact, we even use “normal” toilet paper and not the RV-specific stuff. We like our own backsides and treat them like a human.
Again, those who don’t put toilet paper down the toilet think their good results are the result of that. However, those of us who use RV TP and Happy Campers have No Problem. Our 2017 Winnebago Navion also has a black tank rinser; great.
My favorite Liquid Alive highly resistant to disinfectants, sanitizers, and detergents, but I do keep anything out of the tank such as Clorox type cleaners, I have been using it for years no smell, breaks down the solids and is cheap, a gallon lasts us over a year and we are usually on the road for 6 months out of 12.
Been using it since I bought my 5er with two bathrooms in 2019. Works like a charm and never had any bad odors or clogs.
I have never used it and I also never had any ‘bad’ odors or clogs. Hmmm… and I still have the $$$ I never spent on it.
Wow, ANOTHER miracle black tank treatment. Most of us long-time full-timers have read hundreds of very similar articles. Mix a little bit of science, a little bit of subjective observation, and you have a story that RVers will read.
Seems expensive to me. Ill pass use the citris stuff, get a slight “wiff” inbetween duperoos..add a bit more, never a problem.
As some say “If you have odors you’re doing something wrong.” The answer is water…as much as you can use. I quit using chemicals of any kind years ago and I have no odor problems. Don’t waste your money.
I agree, Drew. If you have odor inside the RV, chances are good that the vent is blocked, or that you have put in too much chemical killing the bacteria that naturally treat the wastes – just like they do for the bear in the woods.
I’ve used TankTechsRx for several years in my motorhome. I’m a vacationer, not a full-timer, but I’ve gone on many long trips across several states and during the pandemic have been home-camping a few days every 2 weeks in the RV parked in my yard. I don’t have odor problems since using it, and the outflows when I dump look quite well dissolved, looking through my clear elbow fitting. I’m on my 3rd bottle of it now. I use it in the black and grey tanks, 4 capfuls per tank, poured down the toilet and a sink with a little water down the sink to move it out of the trap into the tank, once after each dump. So, I’m a satisfied user.
The struvites mentioned in another comment here are not biological components of the additive, but rather are hard mineralized deposits at the bottom of the tank that the manufacturer says build up when other kinds of tank additives are used, but not with his product. He bases this on years of experience flushing out tanks at an RV dealer.
I stand corrected, Stanley. You are correct about what “struvites” are. That being said, the product didn’t live up to its claims for us. We have recently settled on a product that has for the first time, actually cleaned off the black tank sensors.
Tommy, don’t leave us hanging. Please tell us what product you found to clean off the sensors in the black tank. I have tried several to no improvement.
Sorry Larry. When I originally wrote my comment I wasn’t near the trailer to check the name. I just went out in the freezing cold, just for you (ha) to bring in the magic stuff. It’s called Porta-Pak and it’s made by Walex. I never heard of it either, but wifey found it at Wally, and then Amazon. They are small packets you drop in the loo. We’ve used it three times now and every time, we get clean black sensors.
https://www.amazon.com/Walex-PPRVLAV-Porta-Pak-Deodorizer-Drop-Ins/dp/B00BDEO2EM/ref=sr_1_4?crid=U1KKQJHIRP78&dchild=1&keywords=walex+porta+pak+rv+holding+tank+treatment+deodorizer&qid=1620481984&sprefix=walex%2Caps%2C258&sr=8-4
Thanks Tommy
I like the formaldehyde stuff. Sorry.
We never put TP down the toilet. Goes in a small trash can with a lid. There is no smell.
When dumping, in addition to using the tank sprinklers, I fill a gallon jug with water and pour it down the toilet from 3-4 feet up while flushing, to get some more flushing action. It easily washes away the pyramid. I also use “The Wand” often.
Maintenance is always better than repair.
Several years ago we attended a Camping World/Good Sam rally in Phoenix, AZ (the last good one they put on, I might add). We attended a ‘seminar’ put on by “Dr. Poop” and after listening to his presentation, bought a bottle of his Tank TechsRx. We followed his instructions to a “T”. This included not totally emptying our black tank and leaving some ‘poopage’ alive with what Dr. Poop referred to as “struvites” (spelling may be off). These struvites were the active live poop eaters that were supposed to revolutionize the black tank industry. It would kill any odor and eat up the solids as these hungry struvites ate as much as you could dump on them. I made a video of our first dump, and it was “no great shakes”. We saw no improvement whatsoever. Pass . . .
Reads like an advertisement written for the manufacturer rather than an actual review.
Hope to hear from those with real world experiences to share.
Exactly.
Finally! Your links open in new windows. THANK YOU. Makes reading your newsletter very much easier.