algae at the bottom of a bottle

In an effort to have less plastic in my life, I've been keeping a glass bottle for drinking water in the car.  It's been great.  Until the algae showed up.

So I want to clean the glass.  I suppose I could go buy a bottle brush ...  I thought there might be a really simple way to get it out of there that I could do periodically without having to own yet one more thing. 

I boiled a bit of water and put that in there.  Well, it probably killed all the algae, but it is still in three. 

I put a bit of hydrogen peroxide in there - it didn't fizz. 

I put a bit of apple cider vinegar in there overnight - it seems the same. 

Anybody have any ideas?

maybe you could try vinegar and baking soda? that ought to fizz real well and be pretty cool anyhow  as a more permanent solution maybe you need to consider a drinking container that is dark so that there isn't enough sun to getl algae to grow, or ....at least then you wouldn't see the algae if it did grow!

The folks who brew beer here at the farm use two methods to clean bottles:

1) Bottle Brush

2) A Bottle Washer attachment that screws onto a garden faucet. This thing is great. It basically shoots really high pressure water into the bottom of the bottle an scours it. You should be able to find one at any brew shop, but here's a link in case you can't: http://www.beer-wine.com/category_page.asp?categoryid=55&sectionid=1.

Dave

Fill the bottle with hot, soapy water and let sit for a few minutes to soften/loosen the crapola.

Dump out all but 1/4 to 1/3 of the hot soapy water.

Add a couple of spoonsful of dry, uncooked, non-instant rice and shake vigorously.

Rinse well and inspect closely. Repeat if necessary.

A tip for deodorizing stinky plastic containers with lids, like Tupperware. As crazy as it sounds, it really seems to work on everything I've tried, like the really gross tuna sandwich that sat in the car trunk in CA in summer for a couple of weeks.

Wash the container thoroughly with hot, soapy water. Get a piece of regular black/white newspaper and wet it, crumple a bit (not into a hard, tight wad), place inside the container and seal with it's own lid, place in direct sunlight all day.  Remove newspaper, wash again, sniff.  I did have to do it twice for the tuna sandwich...

Sue

This works very well for me:

very coarse salt
some rubbing alcohol

Shake hard, dump, and repeat as necessary, finally rinse well.

I ended up going with a bottle brush. 

And ... today I read something that could be of interest to some in this space:  denture cleaning tablets - plop, plop, fizz, fizz ...

Alka-Seltzer

I have also heard of something involving rice.  A bit of dried rice and water and shaken.

But now I'm looking for prevention.  I want to keep this glass bottle with water in my car, and I want to make sure it doesn't get green stuff. 

Perhaps a bit of grapefruit seed extract?

How about a sprig of barley straw?

http://www.howeseeds.com/specialitygrains.htm

Wine enthusiasts use tiny stainless steel balls, or bb's, to knock loose the gunk in the bottom of bottles. For home use, then wash as usual... or sterilize if bottling beverages.

A tad of Bragg's Raw Apple Cider Vinegar in your water bottle would be excellent for your health, and also keep algae from growing.

My husband insists on doing the same thing so I finally found a container with a large enough opening that I can fit a good brush into.

I am convinced that only physical scrubbing will really remove bacteria.

I don't usually clean up after him but I know he will not scrub that bottle and I need him around for a while so I do it for him.

What is the attraction to the bottle anyway - why can't you guys just use a stainless travel mug?

If there's algae in your water bottle, there's too much nitrate in your water.  Any time we discover a new 'font' of water, we fill up a bottle, leave it out in the sun for a couple of weeks, and if it turns green we assume that there's too much nitrate, and possibly other crap, in it and don't go back there for water.