Anyone ever hear/have this issue with a tank?

[UncleChuck]

A few weeks back I purchased an Ego kit with some Smoketech DC tanks for a vaper buddy of mine, as a birthday gift. He was pleased and was vaping away happily.

So I see him this weekend, and what does he have? A tank completely full of what appeared to be tar.

Apparently as he used and refilled his tanks he said the juice inside just kept getting darker and darker. By the time I see the things the juice had condensed into something so thick that if you tipped the tank upside down the "juice" would cling to the top and take several seconds before making its way to the bottom.

It only happened with two juices, one was the Pumpkin pie from Madvape's fall juice pack, and the other was another from the same pack, but I forget which flavor. I also bought one of those sampler packs for myself and have been going crazy for the Apple Cider flavor, which caused me no issues whatsoever in my tanks.

So I'm assuming there is something odd in those specific juices that refuses to be vaporized, and instead just keeps being left behind in the tank fill after fill until it's just a thick sticky mess in there. It also ruined both cartos, with the remaining "juice" i nthe tank looking so incredibly nasty I can't imagine what the inside of the carto looks like.

Has anyone ever seen or heard of this happening before? I've spent tons of time browsing the forums here over the years and not once ever heard about this issue. I've also used over 100 different juices myself and not once ever experienced something that refused to be vaporized and got left behind in the tank or carto gumming the whole thing up.

I'll probably shoot Madvapes an E-mail about this as I'd imagine they would like to know that two of their juices aren't fit to be used. I don't know if they'll tell me what ingredients they used in those juices, but I'd really like to know, whatever it is it doesn't vaporize.

So is my buddy completely alone in having this happen to him? He seems to have the worst luck with vaping so I felt bad giving him juices that screwed his tanks up hehe.

 

[Baditude]

Did your friend ever change the cartos and empty the tanks over those few weeks?

It's actually common for the larger/heavier components in juice not to not get vaporized and just collect in the tank. This is why after 1-2 tank refills the juice will appear much thicker or darker than when it was a fresh tankful of juice. Typically, the cartomizer's polyfill will have the same appearance, much darker in color and providing a much stiffer draw if any at all.

I don't believe there is any harm in vaping the collected juice, but it sure does affect the quality of the vape, both in flavor and in ease of draw. Before allowing for this to happen in the future, discard the carto for a fresh primed one and discard the remaining juice.

 

[UncleChuck]

As far as I know he did not empty or clean the tanks before refilling.

But this really wasn't a large amount of juice he went though before the issue arose, and the juice wasn't just a bit thicker or darker, it was literally as thick as molasses.

I almost never empty or clean a tank before refilling unless I am changing flavors. I've gone through 30mil bottles in a single tank many times and sometimes the juice did get a tad darker or thicker, but never anything even close to approaching this.

I wish I could have got a pic of it, because it was pretty bad. Seeing that I pretty much only use rather clear juices perhaps I'm just not used to this happening, but the juices that caused the problem were quite clear to begin with as well. It's not as if he was using some super dark coffee flavor or anything, it was very clear with a slight tint of color.

Thanks for the reply... it does make sense that it's common for certain stuff to condense down like this, but I'm still thinking this was a far worse example than normal. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say it was as thick as molasses, not warm molasses either. Maybe I've just been lucky and never used enough of a certain juice in a tank to have it get that bad, does the molasses comparison sound at least somewhat normal or in your opinion is it pretty rare for the juice to get THAT bad in a short period of time, especially starting off very thin and almost entirely clear?

Thanks again!

EDIT:

I did forget to mention these are those tiny little tanks, he didn't run much more than 10ml through the tank before this issue arose. I've just never seen it happen that fast, and with a juice that wasn't unusually thick or dark to begin with.

 

[zapped]

When I got my pmma tank I put some Craveloupe in it.....its a lot of melon and also some citrus.Within a couple of minutes I noticed the tank had spiderweb cracks all through it and the liquid was noticeably thicker.Not sure this is happening with your friends tank but Id still be careful all the same.

 

[UncleChuck]

When I got my pmma tank I put some Craveloupe in it.....its a lot of melon and also some citrus.Within a couple of minutes I noticed the tank had spiderweb cracks all through it and the liquid was noticeably thicker.Not sure this is happening with your friends tank but Id still be careful all the same.

Maybe a possibility... I don't really know. I hear that cinnamon is one of those things that are known to crack tanks, I'm thinking pumpkin pie juice probably has cinnamon in it. But no issues with the tank cracking or discoloring or anything, just the juice getting ridiculously thick and dark. Plus I've been using the apple cider in one of my tanks, which again probably has some cinnamon in it, without any issues whatsoever.

I'm thinking maybe they used some sort of pumpkin extract or something that had a bunch of particulate in it, or maybe some sort of sugar that's causing problems more than usual.

I did email mad vapes so if i find anything out I'll let everyone know.

 

[Baditude]

Nicotine also darkens juice over time, but not cause it to thicken like molasis.

I'm wondering like Zapped, if there was a chemical reaction with the materials in the tank. The original version of the Smoktech DCT tanks used polycarbonate plastic for the tubes. That material is clear and susceptable to certain flavors to crack, melt, or leach substances into e-juice.

The newer versions use polypropylene, which has a frosted appearance and is generally believed to be immune to the volatile flavors.

I would be very curious to see what the tubes in those tanks were made of (clear or frosted) and what condition the tubes are in.

The below link is a current list of known flavors to have bad effects upon polycarbonate plastic and can crack, melt, or leach chemicals into juices.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/tanks/219179-lets-make-list-juices-flavors-crack-tanks-ce2s-clearos-29.html#post7203876

 

[UncleChuck]

All the tanks I currently have, and the two tanks that belong to my friend are all evidently the "old style" as they are perfectly clear, they don't have that frosted look that I've seen on some other tanks.

I did inspect his tanks pretty well when he was showing me how messed up they were, and the plastic appeared to be completely unchanged. No cracks, no discoloration, no pitting or anything like that.

They were brand new when I gave them to him. He ran about 13mils of pumpkin pie through one tank, by that time the juice had turned into molasses. The second tank he had also got gummed up by a second juice, another one from the fall juice pack, although I don't recall which juice it was. This juice turned to tar in the tank with no more than 10mils of juice, because he only had one 10ml bottle of each juice, but two bottles of pumpkin pie because I traded him my pumpkin pie for his apple cider. That's how I was able to be so specific about how much juice he used before they completely turned to that tar like consistency.

10-13mils of juice causing this extreme gumming up seems way too extreme. I have just finished off the two bottles of apple cider I had (20mils total) in one of my tanks, without ever emptying or cleaning it. The tiny bit of juice left in the tank is still just as thin, and only very slightly darker than when it was in the juice bottle.

I have another tank that has seen almost 30mils of green apple run through it, not any thicker or darker.

Another tank with more than 50mils of Grandpa's Mix run through it, still thin and clear.

Another tank with more than 30mils of Cherry Cola ran through it, again still thin and clear.

Like I said I don't doubt that it's fairly common for juice to thicken and darken when refilling the tank over and over without emptying the remainder and cleaning it out. It makes sense that larger or heavy particles like you said wouldn't be able to vaporize and would remain behind.

But the factor by which those two juices became thick and dark just seems way to crazy to be considered "normal" in my opinion. And it's ONLY those two juices, nothing else he or I used has ever done this. He's been vaping for along time on some vapor4life tanks with waffle and other dark thick juices. Even those just barely got thick and darker after tons and tons of refilling, but nothing at all compared to what these two new juices caused (Pumpkin pie and my mind's still a blank on the other one)

 

[UncleChuck]

I had my friend take a pic, in the picture is the juice in the bottle before being used, and the tank on the left shows the juice after. As you can see it's a pretty big difference. The pics obviously don't really show how thick the juice is, but like I said it's just like thick cold molasses. Sorry about the picture quality, his phone's camera is messed up.

 

[Baditude]

Hard to see from the poor quality of the image, but the liquid does indeed look very dark.

I know with some of my coffee flavors, they start out a clear amber but after a tank refill or two, the accumulation of juice can look pretty dark, almost as dark as black coffee. I generally disgard the remainder juice from the tank at that point, clean out the tank, and start with a fresh carto.