Camco 50ft Premium Drinking Water Hose - Lead Free, Anti-Kink Design (5/8"Inside Diameter)
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Out of the box, this is a nice hose. A little hard to get the coiling out of but has good ends, strain relief and does not funkify your water. I thought I had found a winner. Then I decided to move it off the hose holder on the pylon. It had basically petrified into that shape after one season. Not sure if it is the material in the hose, sun or something in the marina water that did it. I do filter my water with a 5 micron filter, then a water softener, and finally through a 2 micron carbon filter before it passed through this hose to the boat. I'm a stickler about any water on board needing to be safe for consumption and to taste good. I'm not quite sure if somehow the softener hardened the hose or what. However, this wasn't the death nail for this hose. It was still usable. It just happened to be molded into the perfect shape for my slip to boat connection. But, then the surprise came. I disconnected the hose from the boat to do a wash down and brown sheets of algae come pouring out. Like lots, I figured the whole inside of the hose was coated. I didn't have the sludge analyzed but from experience I'll bet it was diatom algae. Not dangerous just gross. It's a photosynthesizing algae. Which would mean this hose lets light pass through it. Not necessarily a good thing if you're trying to avoid algae growing in your fresh water system.
So, I switched over to Flexzilla. It's drinking water safe, stays very flexible (hence the name), stretches to an extent, has good ends and is pretty damn tough. I haven't had an algae problem with it yet but I'm keeping an eye out. It does let light through but hopefully not the right spectrum that algae needs to flourish like the Camco. If it does, the search will continue for a drinking water hose but I'll keep the Flexzilla as a wash down hose for sure. Mike from the Lifesaport live-aboard blog
Side note: Ever notice that products and brands that end in "o" usually end up with issues.
