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Just flushing a diesel tank is really insufficient
The boat continued to have problems with the diesel tank
Just "flushing" your diesel tank is a dangerous false sense of security/safety. (see photo report)
Almost weekly, we board a boat whose diesel tanks have supposedly been "flushed" before. Often, a local all-round yacht service company has built a pump with some filters on it. They push a hose through the filling opening or float opening, pump and swirl the diesel up and down a few times. They then claim that the tank has been cleaned, charge people a lot of money, and send them back out on the water.
Last week, we received an assignment from PWR engines in Zwartsluis. There was a cruiser that kept having problems with the fuel supply, despite the tank having been "cleaned" earlier by a local yacht service company. We found two tanks that are divided into multiple compartments by baffles. But there were no inspection/service hatches. And then we already know enough.
These tanks can only have been "flushed" through a filling opening or float opening. Far from cleaned. We pumped the tanks empty and then made a hatch in each compartment. Once the inside was visible, the tanks were, of course, still full of bacteria and sludge. We carefully cleaned each tank compartment by hand through the hatches we made. That is the only way to see what we are doing and to check that we have really cleaned the tank.