soap tank making suds

[CHROMEJUNKIE]

I just bought a car wash and I am having a lot of trouble with the reservoir tanks for my self serve bays. they make a lot of suds on top of the water/soap and it causes the electronic floats not to communicate well. I have other tanks that use mechanical floats and it doesn't bother them. is there a solution to get rid of the suds/bubbles? if not then why do some of my tanks have mechanical floats and the others have electronic floats all of the equipment was put in at the same time by the same people. I'm new to this and have no experience so any help is greatly appreciated.

someone had told me that the suds were caused by bacteria in the tanks so we took everything apart steam cleaned them and then cleaned with alcohol and put it back together with no improvement

 

[Whale of a Wash]

Not sure what your setup is like, but can you put a hose on it with a clamp to keep the incoming soap and water from splashing and making suds-( by filling towards bottom of tank), or lowering water pressure so that tank fills slower.

 

[Washmee]

Make sure the suction line from the soap isn't sucking air into the mixture.

 

[DiamondWash]

Can you post some pictures of your setup on here?

 

[JMMUSTANG]

I agree with Whale make sure your water line going from your hydrominder has a tube running below the soap/water solution level.
It might have come off.
Also if you have a Flojet above te tank the muffler on the flojet may have come off shooting air into the tank causing it to agitate the solution.

 

[pitzerwm]

long shot, air coming into the tank from somewhere

 

[Jeff_L]

pretty sure you need air to make suds, so what everyone is suggest is right on. you have air being applied/sucked in during your fill process.

 

[MEP001]

It doesn't sound like the tanks have Hydrominders since he said it's causing trouble with the electronic floats. I'd be curious to see how the system is set up, but more than likely the suds in the chemical tanks are from it filling above the water line and sudsing it up. Hopefully you can run some hose or tube so it fills below the water level.

 

[Buzzie8]

Could be a check valve too! I have major suds problems when mine go bad.

 

[robtl]

Could be a check valve too! I have major suds problems when mine go bad.

Agree,, When someone leaves a lot of time on the timer and leaves the soap cycle on and running the regulator is put to work big time bypassing the soap mixture back into the suction. If there is a weak or bad pump valve it backs up into the tank. My system has a suction check that can go bad also.