Cleaning your hydration pack!

Got some black deposits in the tube of your Camelbak? Dark stuff in the seams? Little black spots? You've got fungus, mold, and bacterial slime inside your hydration pack. Do you really want to drink that stuff? Didn't think so.

First, get the inside of the bladder clean. That's the easy part. You can use a baby-bottle brush. I've found what works best is a long-handled foam paint brush. The point of the foam gets into the seams nicely.

Don't use soap, unless you want to taste soap for the next month. Just use clean water. Scrub into the seams, and don't forget to clean inside the port where the hose attaches.

If you're having trouble clearing a seam area of black crud, slide the bladder so the seam touches a flat area. Trap the seam between thumb and finger as shown. Now squish back and forth, working down the seam.
Now sterilize the bladder. This slows down the regrowth of spores and germs. Put about 1/2 cup of water in the bladder and toss it in the microwave. Don't boil the water! Just heat it up, a bit at a time, until the bladder is too hot to touch. Take it out and let it sit flat, so the hot water contacts the entire inside of the bladder. Leave it until the water is cool.
Now the fun part -- the hose.

Pull the hose off the bladder, and pull the bite valve off the hose. Get an old derailleur cable. (Clean it first with soap and water if it's greasy!) Slide the derailleur cable through the camelbak hose.
Take a short piece of paper towel (NOT tissue paper). Get it slightly wet, then wrap it around the derailleur cable.
Spiral the paper towel a couple of inches up the cable, making sure it's narrow enough to fit into the tube opening.

Slide the cable, with its paper towel coating, into the tube. (Don't pull on the tube yet.)
It may help to rotate as you push the paper towel-covered cable into the tube.

Once the knob is inside the tube, squish the tube with your fingers, just in front of the paper towel. Pull on the free end of the derailleur cable. The knob will compact the paper, expanding it so it tightly fills the tube. Now we're ready to clean!
Slowly pull the cable through the tube. As you come to obvious problem areas, again squish the tube somewhat, so the paper rubs hard against the inside of the tube.
Once the cable comes out the other end, suppress your urge to hurl as you see what you've been drinking recently. Discard the paper. Reinsert the cable, get a fresh piece of paper towel, and repeat the process until the paper comes out clean and your Camelbak tube looks crystal-clean.

Now put everything back together.

If you're a water drinker, you can avoid fungus and calcium deposits by always using demineralized or distilled water. If you use an electrolyte solution, you're going to get critters growing in your hydration pack no matter how carefully you rinse it after each use. I suggest you grab an old derailleur cable and foam paintbrush, and make them part of your bike tool kit.
One way of slowing the growth of mold is to let the hydration pack sit for a day with a very dilute bleach solution (a teaspoon in an entire bladder of water). Rinse well afterward. This will usually inhibit growth of slime for a couple of months -- about the same length of time it takes before you stop tasting Clorox. I've done this, and it works well. But my kids complained mightily about the taste of the water. Also, the bleach will oxidize the plastic, reducing the lifetime of your hydration pack innards.

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