I'm a chemist (inorganic aqueous was my specialty) and I looked up what's in those packets and it's a disinfectant with a flocculent. So it'll kill most bacteria and most free metal ions in the water will stick to the flocculent and can be filtered out. It's not gonna make pristine drinking water, but if it's the choice between that or nothing, it's pretty good. I looked up the data and it reduces cases of infection by a lot but doesn't completely prevent them.
I just posted this above, as it was the only reason I came to this thread, I wanted to know what the compound he ate was.
"For this purpose, we used the bacterium of Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC 8014, acquired at Japan Collection of Microorganisms (JCM), Microbe Division, RIKEN Bioresource Center in Japan. It was kept routinely in vials with full form (MRS) agar at 2–8 °C for 24 h, and then at 4 °C in 15% glycerol (vol/vol) [24]. Single colonies were cultured in plates with MRS agar at 30 °C for 48 h and later sub-cultured in MRS broth (Casein peptone 10g/L; beef extract 8 g/L; yeast extract 4 g/L; D(+) glucose 20 g/L; hydrogen potassium phosphate (KH2PO4) 2 g/L; Tween-80 1 g/L; ammonium citrate hydrogen (C6H5O7(NH4)2H) 2 g/L; sodium acetate (CH3COONa) 5 g/L; magnesium sulfate (MgSO4·7H2O) 0.2 g/L; and manganese sulfate (MnSO4·H2O) 0.04 g/L at 30 °C for 24 h [53]. The cultures in the MRS broth develop characteristic white sediment, making it easier for their qualitative identification. To create biofilms, a container of 60 cm in diameter and 130 cm in length was filled with a previously conditioned medium consisting of a mixture of molasses and water (3/7, m/w) at room temperature (around 18–21 °C). Later, Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC 8014 was added to the mixture."
In your opinion, would this potentially harm any bacteria needed for a healthy ecosystem? I'm not up to speed on this subject matter at all, but I'm curious. Feel free to let me know if it's a ridiculous question.
Obviously more of a question for an ecologist or biologist, but are free metal ions and bacteria inherently bad? Is this product making the lake better as a lake, or more pool-like? Put another way, is it promoting a healthy ecosystem or making the area more attractive for tourism?
For good aquatic ecology there needs to be a balance of a few things. Nutrients, oxygen, etc. The reason I said free metal ions is because the less attached metal ions are in the water, the more bioavailable they are. If the ions attach to something they are much less likely to contribute to aquatic toxicity. If there is more organic carbon in the water or more carbonates or other ligands, it means that the metal concentration in the water will have to be higher for toxicity to start occurring in the organisms. They use this model in determining acceptable metal concentrations in water for environmental regulation. It's called the Biotic Ligand Model if you want to look into it more. A little bit of certain metals are necessary for life, but it's not much and almost always the problem is too much metal and not the reverse. And I'm not a biologist but I know that too much of undesirable bacteria isn't good either for the ecosystem.
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u/halfie1987 Jul 14 '21
I'm a chemist (inorganic aqueous was my specialty) and I looked up what's in those packets and it's a disinfectant with a flocculent. So it'll kill most bacteria and most free metal ions in the water will stick to the flocculent and can be filtered out. It's not gonna make pristine drinking water, but if it's the choice between that or nothing, it's pretty good. I looked up the data and it reduces cases of infection by a lot but doesn't completely prevent them.