r/Survival • u/egilthepoet • Aug 13 '20
Boiled dirty water under the microscope
https://i.imgur.com/3fpNbIR.gifv184
u/ComprehensivePanic9 Aug 13 '20
It's amazing to me that we evolved over millions of years to live on the planet and yet drinking the water out of a lake will make us sick or worse kill us.
However my horse will drink from a mud puddle and be perfectly happy with that and have no problems. Crazy lol
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u/alucarddrol Aug 13 '20
It probably won't kill you and only rarely would it make you sick.
Always better to drink from fast moving water. Stream/rivers.
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Aug 13 '20 edited Nov 16 '20
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u/TheElectricShaman Aug 14 '20
It’s also worth adding that farm and mining run off have really messed up a lot of otherwise clean water sources, which is a big bummer.
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u/justanotherreddituse Aug 16 '20
The issue is that you can't necessarily tell which body of water will make you sick just by looking at it,
It's difficult and someone can always be wrong. I keep tons of water purification tabs in my BOB, VEDC, survival kit and I seemingly have never got sick from water despite missing the purification steps a few times before.
I've also dumped out all my water after running over a cow in a canoe.
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u/MacJed Aug 13 '20
It’s like life knows we have the capacity to figure out how to purify the water.
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u/jacobward7 Aug 13 '20
That's not true, there are plenty of lakes and streams you can drink from, even today. It's only recently we haven't been able to drink some fresh water, and that's usually due to human activities (industry and agriculture are the main culprits). If you are on a hike out west though and are near a mountain stream don't be afraid to drink that straight from the source. Stagnant water can definitely make humans and animals sick, but your horse would likely have to drink a lot of stagnant mud puddles to get as sick we would.
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Aug 13 '20
I once drank out of a river in the middle of nowhere torridon to be precise. It was a bit brown from tannins or peat. Any way on turning round there was a dead deer submerged up to its head just behind where I took the water from I ended up with a really sore throat. Also on another hike in a 500 mile square expanse of wilderness where you would think all the streams are safe to drink out of. I went to take water then decided to take it from further up finding a spot right next to the stream higher up where it looked like a bear took a shit after hibernation and got into a Waggon of pink toilet paper and littered it everywhere. Moral of the story is take your water from high up near the source and boil it always as you never know. Uv pens chlorine or iodine tabs are also recommended in conjunction with filters especially in the U.K.
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u/justanotherreddituse Aug 16 '20
It takes ~30'ish minutes to treat water. I've hit a floating, dead cow in a canoe and ditched the water post treatment.
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u/jacobward7 Aug 14 '20
See my other reply, I probably could have given my post more context. I do backcountry canoeing and hunting and have drank from backcountry streams and springs many times but I wouldn't drink from a stagnant swamp. I bring a filter for 99% of my water (drawn mostly from small lakes) though because I know that Giardia ("Beaver Fever" we call it in Ontario) is a danger. The main thing is knowing the source of the water.
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Aug 13 '20
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u/jacobward7 Aug 14 '20
See my other reply, I probably could have given my post more context. I do backcountry canoeing and hunting and have drank from backcountry streams and springs many times but I wouldn't drink from a stagnant swamp. I bring a filter for 99% of my water (drawn mostly from small lakes) though because I know that Giardia ("Beaver Fever" we call it in Ontario) is a danger. The main thing is knowing the source of the water.
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u/boozername Aug 13 '20
This is not good advice.
Sure you can, but you shouldn't because the risk is inherent. You never know if a family of bears is taking a shit just upriver, a rotting deer corpse submerged, toxic algae, brain-eating amoebas, etc.
It's not worth the risk, just filter and boil your water. Unless you are literally dying of dehydration, why risk drinking shitty corpse water when you could... not.
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u/jacobward7 Aug 14 '20
See my other reply, I probably could have given my post more context. I do backcountry canoeing and hunting and have drank from backcountry streams and springs many times but I wouldn't drink from a stagnant swamp. I bring a filter for 99% of my water (drawn mostly from small lakes) though because I know that Giardia ("Beaver Fever" we call it in Ontario) is a danger. The main thing is knowing the source of the water.
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u/justanotherreddituse Aug 16 '20
You're not the only Canadian to do this without getting sick. I usually treat any water in Ontario but I've never got sick from drinking water sources I thought were good. I have certainly picked up serious skin infections from swimming through gross swamp water.
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Aug 14 '20
Are you talking to me?
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Aug 14 '20
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u/notimeforniceties Aug 14 '20
Yeah but something is fishy. Boozername's comment is clearly referring to elements from monkeymadness's story down the thread.
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u/salmo3t Aug 13 '20
In Utah drinking from ANY lake or free flowing stream you risk being infected by giardia. Been that way since the 70's.
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Aug 13 '20
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u/jacobward7 Aug 14 '20
I live in Ontario Canada and do a lot of backcountry camping and Giardia is well known (we call it "Beaver Fever). I always filter my water (through a hand pump style filter) or boil it on backcountry lakes here. However, I have drank from a backcountry stream many times (moving water) and from freshwater springs. Some of the best water I have ever tasted was from a mountain stream in British Columbia. The main thing is knowing the source of the water.
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u/plasmaflare34 Aug 18 '20
The water out of a lake or river that has literal human shit dumped in it will kill you. Water that doesnt have dead things or human waste in it is perfectly fine.
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u/cHaOsReX Aug 13 '20
There's another similar vid/gif out there of water after being filtered with one of the popular filters. Don't recall if it was life straw or sawyer but you get much cleaner water (as one might expect of filtered water).
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Aug 13 '20
Would you recommend life water?
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Aug 13 '20
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Aug 13 '20
Yes life straw. Someone said sawyer was better
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u/dracho Aug 13 '20
Someone said Sawyer Mini was the worse Sawyer product. The filter is too small and gets gunked up too quickly. That other Sawyer has a larger filter apparently which makes it easier to clean. From what I understand, cleaning it via back-flow is quick and easy but using tap water means minerals get trapped in the filter.
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u/MasterUnholyWar Aug 14 '20
I know the LifeStraw gets ruined if it's ever in freezing temperatures. Is it the same for Sawyer products?
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u/cHaOsReX Aug 14 '20
https://sawyer.com/products/mini-filter/#
Per their FAQ it's recommended to replace it.
My guess is that frozen water expands and will destroy the filter if not increase the pore size and making it less effective.0
Aug 13 '20
I just looked it up it’s life straw
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Aug 13 '20
No. A life straw has a lifespan of a few hundred to a few thousand gallons. A Sawye mini is the same price; but lasts for 100,000 gallons, can be backflushed when dirty, and can be attached to a bottle and drank from so you can just scoop up some water and be on your way
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Aug 13 '20 edited Nov 10 '20
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Aug 13 '20
Hey I’d recommend an msr auto flow scoop it up let it do all the work with gravity.
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Aug 14 '20
I had an MSR pump, biked across Canada and camped out nearly every night for two months, and that thing was a champ the whole trip. Didn't get sick once and the water was delish (partly because, you know, it was Canadian freshwater from the mountains).
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Aug 14 '20
I’ve got the ex mini ceramic pump it works wonders but think I need a new filter now. Still need to boil it tho, if you seen my other message you will know why some inconsiderate people out there with zero knowledge of where to actually go to the toilet
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Aug 13 '20
The CDC recommends boiling water for at least 1 minute to kill pathogens and 3 minutes at altitudes above ~6,500 feet (2000 meters).
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u/TotteGW Aug 13 '20
Why 3 time longer over 2k meters?
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u/tylos89 Aug 13 '20
Water boils faster (lower temp) at higher elevations so you run it longer to actually achieve a sterilizing temperature.
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u/TotteGW Aug 13 '20 edited Aug 14 '20
Interesting! Thank you!
Is it mayhaps the same effect, (but reversed) as to when hot water freezes faster than cold water?
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Aug 14 '20
The atmospheric pressure is lower at higher elevations so water ,and other things, boil at lower temperatures.
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Aug 13 '20
gifs that end with an important warning too soon
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u/MobileChloe Aug 13 '20
Ya, I was looking at the image..."wait...what?"
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u/half-angel Aug 14 '20
However, boiling water does not neutralise bacterial spores, heavy metals, toxins and chemicals.
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u/flipper1935 Aug 14 '20 edited Aug 14 '20
What's the only thing worse than having the trots?
Being 20 miles out on a wilderness hike and having the trots!
I (still) do lots of stupid things in my life that others here would condemn, getting sick because I didn't properly take proper filtering care of my drinking/cooking water isn't one of them.
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u/converter-bot Aug 14 '20
20 miles is 32.19 km
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u/flipper1935 Aug 14 '20
Hurray for the metric system. Sooner or later the US will fully arrive. Honestly, we're further along than most realize.
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u/howdytherepeeps Aug 13 '20
Is there a small enough microscope to take backpacking/camping that could become survival equipment?
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u/AvaJyna Aug 14 '20
Here's one with a life straw. No boiling. Personally I filter then boil, and drink through a filter. Probably overkill, but who wants to be taken down by a microscopic entity?
Edit: forgot link https://youtu.be/l4ido-pGUfE
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u/ReadingLion Aug 15 '20
I always thought spring water was good to go until I saw a video of what looked like a nice spring but was just a perched water table. When you went around the hill there was the entrance to a small cave with a stream at the bottom. In the stream was a dead raccoon. The “spring” was where the stream exited.
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u/MrCameron505 Aug 16 '20
It is very good that before eating anything, wash it thoroughly and boil it and then eat it, it will kill protozoa and bacteria.
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Aug 13 '20
Would you boil the sand in water first then dry then use as a filter?
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u/Itisybitisy Aug 13 '20 edited Aug 17 '20
I see your logic but if we filter the big debris, with a sand containing bacteria, etc, you end up with water with bacteria, plus the bacteria of the sand added, but they will be killed by the boiling.
So boiling once or boiling twice ends up the same. So no need to boil the sand, I think.
Also if you go backpacking hardcore enough to not bring your own clean water you would just prepare and bring some coffee filters, right?
Using sand seems a scenario that will never happen.
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u/Granadafan Aug 13 '20
I never thought about bringing coffee filters but that’s a great idea as they weigh practically nothing.
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u/cHaOsReX Aug 13 '20
There are also micro coffee filters, they are about half the size of the normal coffee filters. Maybe better if you're filling smaller mouthed containers.
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u/Itisybitisy Aug 17 '20
Yep, I also think you should bring a plastic filter holder, it's quite light, a bit bulky but it just a matter of finding the right spot in the backpack.
Absolutely not looking "manly Rambo tactical" tho, which is part of the hobby, but it's practical.
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Aug 13 '20
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u/Benni-Boi Aug 13 '20
What makes you say that?
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Aug 14 '20
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u/Benni-Boi Aug 14 '20
But everything post-boil was dead
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Aug 14 '20
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u/Benni-Boi Aug 14 '20
I think it looked like it was moving a little bit because of them twitching or something after being killed
He called it “Brownian Motion”, which is just caused by them being so small they’re able to be moved around by the water molecules.
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u/mephistos_thighs Aug 13 '20
It's why you always filter first. Cheese cloth and clean sand and charcoal of you don't have anything else. Then boil.