Water Tank pickup Tube

[Natesms]

The pickup tube in my water tank broke off into the tank. My question is do I need to get it out of there? It corroded around the fitting and I'm wonder if it will eat away at the metal of the tank. I believe it was a copper tube like in the picture below.

I ordered a new "Fuel tank pickup" because that's all that will fit into the tank. I couldn't find a copper replacement. The pickup tube for the new one is plastic. I'm worried about mold, anyone have thoughts on that?

 

[Natesms]

No Title

Just in case anyone runs across this thread, I did some more research and I definitely needed to get the metal pickup tube out of tank. The tube was heavily corroded all up and down and it would have disintegrated into my fresh water system left unattended. I was able to fish it out with a claw grabber and a coat hanger. It took about 20 minutes of fishing and 2 beers but was able to do it without removing the tank.

It took some shopping for a while to find the correct fitting that I could glue a tube to, but I was able to replace the pickup tube with PVC from Home Depot for about $8.

 

[GA_Boater]

Nate - Is the tank aluminum or steel? Wonder what made the tube corrode? It might be worth a shot to ground the tank using the lug by the tube fitting.

BTW - Good fishing!

 

[Natesms]

I believe the tank is steel with an aluminum fuel fitting that was used for the pickup tube. I should be set with the PVC fittings now. I have no clue why they used the fitting they did.