Can't hurt to try it out.
Just grab like a 5 gallon bucket's worth and mix well.
If it works it'll clear up fairly quickly.

 

I found one very brief site that says to boil a pad with the water. I might try mashing a leaf up and putting it in without a boil and see if that will work.

I just don't like the idea of boiling dirty water. After it's cleared? Sure.

 

I didn't know that about prickly pear pads. They grow around here. Thanks for passing that on. It looks like a little experimentation is called for!

 

Interesting.

I found this video:

The guy claims the alum drops out with the yuck.

I have a lake 150' from the front door. It looks like alum might be another really good water prep.

 

That video is good but the guy mentions a number of times that he is purifying the water. At the very end he clarifies and states that he still needs to add chlorine.

I just want to make sure everyone caught that part. Flocculation is a great precursor step to filtering/chlorinating. However, it is not sufficient by itself to create potable water.

Also note that the flocculation is insufficient to remove the various protozoa in the water and subsequent chlorination would also be ineffective. You still need to filter this water to remove that before chlorination. Chlorination is imperfect when it comes to the larger micro-organisms.

But yes. Alum powder is a good thing to have stocked as it will drastically reduce the amount of back washing you have to perform on your filters.

 

That video is good but the guy mentions a number of times that he is purifying the water. At the very end he clarifies and states that he still needs to add chlorine.

I just want to make sure everyone caught that part. Flocculation is a great precursor step to filtering/chlorinating. However, it is not sufficient by itself to create potable water.

Also note that the flocculation is insufficient to remove the various protozoa in the water and subsequent chlorination would also be ineffective. You still need to filter this water to remove that before chlorination. Chlorination is imperfect when it comes to the larger micro-organisms.

But yes. Alum powder is a good thing to have stocked as it will drastically reduce the amount of back washing you have to perform on your filters.

"Flocculation". That is my new word for the day!

Seriously, though. I had no idea that chlorine would be insufficient to kill protozoa. Thank you. Seems that really clean water is a bit more complicated than just letting the solids settle, pouring it through a tee shirt then adding a couple of drops of Clorox.

Thank you. I think periodic reminders of this are important as there seems to be a good deal of well-meaning but incomplete (and therefore dangerous?) information out there.

 

Nice video. I'd have thought that chlorination would have finished it. Thanks for that note Chris.

I sure wish I had a microscope. I'm going to try that.

 

Sometimes chilling the water down (if possible) helps with flocculation. In homebrewing we use different things (fining agents) like Irish Moss, bentonite, and gelatin. Some of these are for protiens rather than minerals. Good to know that alum has another potential use besides making pickles

 

Alum doesn't work well in cold water. We use to use it at work but it didn't perform well when the water got cold. The alum and sediment would all stay suspended and filter washing became much more frequent.


Then there's the other end of the extreme. The water we keep in the huge reservoir has the large particles drop out but fine particles stay in solution. Even the Ferric chloride we use now has a hard time getting that stuff out of the water no matter what the temperature. Summer or winter, when we use this water source our coagulant use goes way up and it still ends up all in the filters and our filter run times decrease.

Also note that many coagulants work within a certain pH range and do their best at a very specific pH. And they also often change the pH of the water too.

 

From the CDC

From the CDC:

http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/travel/backcountry_water_treatment.html

 

Put 8 drops of bleach per gallon and wait 24 hours then it is drinkable. You can use less bleach in water that is clear. Be sure to use bleach without any additives.

 

Eight drops of bleach does not sound like it will do the job. Boiling might be necessary after flocculation.

See the post that Chris added above: http://www.survivalistboards.com/tweet.php?do=post&id=4559995&c=4559995

 

I'm reading many conflicting things about flocculation and then chlorination.

I found this product that does both. It is even used by .gov:

http://www.campingsurvival.com/milwatpurtab.html

From the ad:

Chlor-Floc contains a combination of flocculation and coagulation agents which promote rapid formation of sediment in treated water (sediment is easily removed by straining the water through a cloth). After clarification of the water the chlorine released by the active ingredients is then free to kill giardia lamblia cysts, bacteria, viruses, and other harmful micro-organisms which are not removed with the sediment.

So, my question to the water pros:

Does chlorine make clear water safe to drink or not?

 

I'm reading many conflicting things about flocculation and then chlorination.

I found this product that does both. It is even used by .gov:

http://www.campingsurvival.com/milwatpurtab.html

From the ad:



So, my question to the water pros:

Does chlorine make clear water safe to drink or not?

Most treatment plants have gotten away from using both a pre chlorine and coagulant to the raw water. Mostly because it increases the amounts of THM's. One of the things our plants did was move the injection point for pre chlorine to after the settling basins to decrease the amounts of THM's produced but still give a sufficient contact time.

Chlorine does have some effect on Giardia. With Giardia it needs several hours to effectively kill them. Chlorine has no effect on cryptosporidium. Either one can make you ill if ingested in sufficient quantities.

Sand and charcoal have almost no ability to remove either of them.

That's why many of us recommend a good ceramic or membrane filter as well as chlorine as a disinfectant. These type filters do a good job of removing cysts and protozoa and most bacteria. Some bacteria and almost all viruses would still pass through. And that's what the chlorine takes care of.

Of course boiling works too at killing all of these things. Pretty sure SODIS will kill all of these too but don't quote me on that. I know if exposed to sufficient UV giardia and cryptosporidium will both die.

 

Nice video on using prickly pears in the field.


Survival Water Containers - Hold, drink and Purify Water with the Prickly Pear Cactus

Nice video on using prickly pears in the field.

 

Good thread. Tagging in cuz I have a pond we'll be drinking from if the SHTF.

Not to sidetrack, but I'm thinking about getting a Big Berkey for this purpose. I guess it would work on pond water. I'd probably want to pre-filter it first before it goes in the Berk.

 

The biggest thing I'm bringing away from this thread is the concept of flocculation.

It seems to be a great pre-treat substitute for a pre-filter.

 

By the way those 5 gallon water cooler jugs work great as flocculation chambers.

Simply turn it upside down like you would putting it into a water croft. Cap the opening so that it can be opened and closed. It must be water proof. Then cut the bottom off so you can pour your water in what is now the top.

A drain line can be connected to the side of the bottle just above the cant line. Make sure you have a valve on it so you can close it up while the water is clearing up. Open the valve to drain the clear water out (potentially through a filter).

When you need to clean the sludge that builds up on the bottom you can now remove the cap you added before and allow it to drain out the bottles original opening.

 

I have several glass carboys for home brewing. This is a neat tool that is used to siphon off the brew while leaving behind the trub, which is very similar to flocculated particles that sink:

Auto-Siphon

That can be used in pots, PET bottles, carboys or anything else that has an opening large enough to fit it in.

The downside is that it's very prone to breakage where the siphon tube makes the bend. I try to keep two on hand.

The Auto-siphon makes it a snap to start a siphon without disturning the contents and to draw down to a specific place, but flexible rubber tubing can also be used with slightly less precision to siphon off the good water.

 

I would also be concerned about chemical contamination of pond water. Bleach and clorine would do nothing if you have diesel, gasoline, or oil in the water. If you live near an old military base, the ground contaminats can include acetones, ketones, glycol, etc.

OP, can you dig a well?

 

If you have water that messed up I'd think that distilling would be the best shot that you had at making it drinkable. But what if that were the only water that was reasonably available to you? I'm just guessing here, but it seems likely that any pollutants will be reduced during flocculation.

It seems to me that flocculation of any silty water is still a good first step. Otherwise all of that silt is going to be cooked onto your gear and water to clean with is probably hard to come by. Then you could try running it through some clean sand and charcoal to try to remove some of the pollutants at least. Then you'd have a fairly clear liquid to distill.

I have a well that's likely heavily polluted with animal waste over the years. If it comes to it I'd have to try and distill that water to have any chance of leaving the nitrites and nitrates behind.

I have a gas well on my place and fracking going on all around. I'm hesitant to put in a shallow well due to the costs and the likelihood that it will become polluted in the future. So far so good on community water, the creeks and my pond as far as pollutants go.

 

I'm really jazzed about this alum stuff. I found it in town for $19/5 lb., ironically at the same place I bought my calcium hypochlorite.

I also found this video that has really cinched it for me:

Very refreshing to get some original info on the forum for a change.

 

I'm boiling a couple of small prickly pear pads right now.

I have already put 1/2 TBL spoon of alum in a pan, heated and stirred it in. Thta's already been pitched. I'm not sure if that's enough alum for 4.5 gallons of silty water.

 

The water source:

Carboys. Left and middle are pond water that I just brought up. On the right is a carboy with water in it.

I put 1/2 tablespoon of Alum in the middle carboy. It's starting to work without being shaken. I'm still boiling sliced prickly pear pads that will go into the left carboy.

The middle carboy with Alum has cleared as well as the water carboy to the right side.

I just now added prickly pear soup to the carboy on the left.

PPS = slicking pads and boiling them in water until a green soup forms. I'm going to see if just the soup will work, or if I'll have to put the prickly pear pieces in there too.

I lost the back light. I'll get more photos tomorrow.

 

Strange. The middle one look like all the muck is at the top. Floc is supposed to settle to the bottom.

 

It did float. I thought that it was supposed to settle to the bottom, too. Maybe it's the carboy?

No real settling in the left carboy with the prickly pear soup as of dusk yesterday.

 

Only reason for it to float would be that whatever it is it's specific gravity is less then that of water. Mostly that means to me oil. It did look rather emulsified in the picture where it was just starting to floc. But I didn't notice any type of oil sheen on the pond.

Dirt, heavy metals and such definitely sinks when floc forms since it's heavier then water.

The carboy should have no effect on how the floc forms or settles. Or in this case floats. I've seen stuff float in the settling basins but not to this extent. Usually most of the stuff sinks and a thin layer sometimes forms on the top. A couple times it's gotten kinda thick but nothing like what I see there. Looks like everything floated and nothing sunk.

What ever it is it's got to have a specific gravity real close to that of water for it to stay suspended for so long.


Curiouser and curiouser.

 

There shouldn't be any oil in that pond. There was no sheen, or any other indicators.

I gave it a swirl this morning and everything did sink.

Two thumbs up on alum!! It's very clear. I can siphon it away into a clean pot, boil it and have a drink now.

No real effects from the prickly pear soup.

Alum does acidify the water from what I've read. 1/2 tablespoon per 5 gallons of water looks to be the dosage. If too much is added it acidifies the water past the point that alum will work.

 

if you are going to boil it anyway, why not just distill it? it is not difficult to capture the steam and make a quick condenser.

survivor man used a pot, aluminum foil, drinking straw, and small plastic cup. simple, but effective.

 

If it's oil, or whatever it is since it's staying emulsified and not naturally separating, it'll be very difficult to separate by distilling.

Was that pond always like that or did this happen since they've been fracking around your place? Stuff like that in your water is scary to me. Might be found in any well you dig.

Or is this a runoff type pond and there's something uphill that's using something that's blended with water?


Besides using the alum which seems to work at separating the two you might want to invest in something like this to absorb this stuff but not the water.
http://www.newpig.com/pig/US/absorbents-503/pig-oil-absorbent-socks-booms-941

I'd hate to have that stuff muck up any ceramic membrane filter.

 

Like many, i too have pond/s to pull h2o from and have multiple systems, the primary being the Monolithic Water Filter system...did a review of it using the pond 150' from my front door....worked great, cost effective too...no nasties... :

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=167100&highlight=monolithic+water

of course, i have other treatment options as well.....

 

At the ranch when we brand our holding pen's or by the stock tanks. some are steel above ground and some are dirt tanks. Hell we take a can and fill it with water boil it and strain it in to a nother can. Never had any problem's doing this and the water is just fine.. I still do this when I'm hunting.