How rough can I be?

[snoozysue]

Every morning I empty out the unused distilled water from my water chamber, give it a wash with warm water and a mild detergent and leave it to air dry during the day.
Each night I fill it again with new distilled water. I recently thought I noticed a pink tinge but thought it was reflection from the nearby pink towel.
I now realise it is not, as I have done a cpaptalk search on "pink" and I am horrified - so I am going to replace the water tank.
Now I would like to clean my Quattro FF mask as vigourously as possible without actually destroying it. I would appreciate some help please on what I should do.

[archangle]

A spare tank is always a good thing to have. That way, you can switch every week and let the just cleaned one sit dry for a week.

Are you really sure that there's something pink on your tank? Does it wipe off on a white paper towel? Do you disassemble the tank to clean it?

Change detergents. Maybe that's where the pink comes from or it's feeding bacteria.

I have washed my Respironics tanks in the dishwasher once a week for 7 years now, and get several years per tank, although I have only had the PRS1 tank for about 5 months now. Normal dishwashing powder, hottest, longest, "sanitize" cycle.

You should be able to disassemble your Quattro mask and wash everything but the straps and the "short tube" in the dishwasher. Here are the ResMed Disinfection and Sterilization instructions for multipatient use. Note the temperature and time limit of the "high level thermal disinfection." Your dishwasher shouldn't get hot enough to hurt anything except possibly the short hose, and I'll bet it wouldn't really hurt that.

I took a PRS1 tank from a used CPAP machine and put it in hot water to sanitize it. I heated a large pot of water to a good boil, turned off the heat, waited half a minute or so and dropped the disassembled tank into the water for 5 minutes or so. I haven't seen a Respironics document on sterilizing tanks, and wouldn't do it often, but my tank was OK.

If you're still worried, buy a new hose, they're cheap.

[codinqueen]

be very careful using heat on the short hose - i boiled one once in boiling water to clean it, and it melted!

[Treesap]

I'm not sure dish washer detergent is good on parts either. It is too strong. Many have bleach in them.

I've always washed my stuff with baby shampoo.

[BlackSpinner]

Vinegar will do a number on mold.
Another fungicide is Tea tree oil. Some time I add a drop to the washing water with my all organic unscented soap. I let it stand then rinse it several times then I do the vinegar rinse.

[archangle]

I'm not sure dish washer detergent is good on parts either. It is too strong. Many have bleach in them.

I've always washed my stuff with baby shampoo.

I've been dishwashing all my washable equipment except for the headstraps every week for 7 years. Heated "sanitize" cycle. My cushions and flaps last 6 months or so. The rubber on one hose got sticky after 5 or so years. Nothing else shows any signs of wear from being washed. I'm not sure I can blame the cushion wear on dishwashing, or if that's from contact with oil and dirt from me.

Masks are intended to be cleaned between patients with "hospital" chemicals. They're tough. The mask manufacturers have hospital cleaning procedures that are a heck of a lot tougher than your dishwasher.

Get a spare of each cleanable part. You need a spare anyway. Then experiment with dishwashing. Wouldn't you rather risk a replaceable part than risk something happening to you because you treated your mask parts and the attached germs "gently."

I KNOW my equipment is clean when it comes out of the dishwasher. I know it's been in water hot enough to kill most germs. I've got doubts about how clean and germ free equipment will be when hand cleaned with stuff intended to be "gentle."

After the dishwasher gets through with things, they're "clean enough to eat off of."

Dishwashers and dishwashing detergent are designed to clean nasty, tough organic messes and kill germs. Baby shampoo and most other "gentle" stuff is designed to remove oil and dirt without harming human skin and eyes. Imagine putting one dirty dish with stuck on food in the dishwasher, and giving another dish a cleaning with the "gentle" baby shampoo.

Stop unnecessarily coddling your masks and the attached dirt and germs. Coddle yourself with clean masks.

[archangle]

be very careful using heat on the short hose - i boiled one once in boiling water to clean it, and it melted!

Yes, you should be careful with the "short hose" or "short tube" as I mentioned.

In case you don't already know, the "short tube" is the short piece of hose that's part of some masks. It's usually clear plastic and looks different from other hoses.

However, codinqueen put her short hose in boiling water with baking soda on the stove with the heat on and left it boiling unattended for 20 minutes. viewtopic/p632176/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6 ... se#p618339

I have put 2 different short hoses into boiled water. However:

I did this on used masks I acquired that I was going to sanitize or throw away.
I turned off the heat and let the bubbling stop before I put the parts in the water.
I watched it carefully, pulled the parts out a time or two and checked that they weren't getting too soft. I especially watched the short hoses carefully.
I only kept the hose in the water for 5 minutes or so, and the water was cooling as I worked.
The short hoses did soften a little bit while hot, so I handled them carefully and didn't let them sit too long.

One hose was from a Breeze Sleepgear and one was an Oracle 452.

I do not usually "boil" any of my equipment except when it's used stuff I'm going to sanitize or throw away. I've never boiled anything more than once. I ever had something "nasty" enough happen that I was considering throwing the part away, I'd consider boiling it. I'm also not really boiling, just putting the part in 90-100 degrees C water.

By the way, even "real" boiling won't kill ALL germs, but it gets most of the ones you care about.