newbie aquamira question

[tyler milke]

I've been looking around for an actual volume of aquamira needed per liter and cannot find it, I was hoping someone here could point me in the right direction.

thanks
Ty

[Jay Wilkerson]

It is 7 drops per bottle for 1 ltr. Let stand for 15 min. after a 5 min mix time in a mixing cup. I use a chapstick cap= 1 gram.

[tyler milke]

thanks, what I am looking for is an actual measurement, I have the 2 oz. bottles of aquamira, they are not dropper bottles, and I want to repackage in the micro dropper and micro dropper plus bottles.

[te – wa]

the GG droppers require 10 drops each, not the stock 7 drops from AM bottles. I also use a chapstick cap,, didnt think I was the only one! fight on, mang!
where did you aquire your droppers?

[tyler milke]

they're the ones they sell here

[Jay Wilkerson]

BPL's micro and mini bottles both work great. I like to repackage and save weight!!!!

[Mike Clelland]

Please know – the 7 & 7 drop thing was written by a lawyer. That'll make it possible to drink from the sewer.

Many aqua Mira users will use a greatly reduced number of drops per liter.

If I'm drinking from a mountain stream, I'll use 3 & 3 drops (less than half of the recommended dosage).

If I'm drinking from a lake near popular camping, I'll use 5 & 5 drops (a little over half of the recommended dosage).

THat's just me. If you get diareha – don't blame me…

[Jay Wilkerson]

On the 7 & 7 drops- that's the directions on AQ bottles. Better safe then sorry!! Most experienced hikers now the difference between good and bad water sources. Snow melt VS. Cow pond.

[Mike Clelland]

Here's what I've been doing (and teaching):

Start with 3 mini-dropper bottles. Two of them are labed A & B, the thirid is labed MIX. I keep 'em together in a little plastic ziploc.

Re-Cant the Aqua Mira A & B in their labeled little bottles. In the morning BEORE traveling, mix up half and half in the MIX bottle. Wait about 10 minutes before treating your water. (* see below *)

Now, the stuff in the MIX bottle will remain "active" for well over 24 hours. So, there is no need to mix it each time. Just use it during the day. I had a fellow from the AquaMira parent company guess that it would last about a week in it's mixed form, he agreed that 24 hours is a very safe and conservative amount of time.

If the mix is even a little bit YELLOW, it's safe.

Now, you have freed up a bunch of time and hassle when treating water, no need to continually mix on the trail. And team mates can MUCH more easily share the drops.

(* continued from above *)
THere is a extra bit to know.

The "recommended" 7 & 7 should equal 14 drops per liter. It gets tricky because the little hole in the min-dropper may be a different size than the AquaMira package, so I'v found that if you put 14 drops (of A & B) in the mini-dropper, only 10 drops will come out and then it's empty. So, you need to test this ahead of time.

[te – wa]

good insight, MC. I was going to add only that please make sure the cap on bottle 3 is tight, as the Chlorine Dioxide (?) will form a gas if left to evaporate. I think it would slowly lose effectiveness but as you say, 24 hours would not do much harm. I also have been using the MicroPur tablets and *Halving* the dosage as it's my opinion from testing the stuff that one tablet will easily and effectively treat 2 liters. (of clear, or near clear water. stock pond w/ a dead floating coyote? use more)
I open the foil packaging and store a dozen or so tablets in one of the little supermaket toy machine containers. So far I have been able to glean that these tablets are very similar to the hard tablets one might use to treat a swimming pool, just micro-sized. I could imagine that the tablets in hard form would not lose any potency even if allowed to sit in standing air for days.

[tyler milke]

MC sounds good to me, and I hear what you're saying about using less if the water is good. How bad is AM if you use too much?

Micheal, do the Micropur tabs stay good after you have opened them? For how long?

thanks again for answering my questions!!

[Tad Englund]

Thanks for the advice Mike, this will speed up my day (I always thought the 5 min wait time was an necessary evil, but no more!)

[te – wa]

Tyler, I think the tablets are activated by water or direct contact with moisture. I cannot say that mine have been exposed to high humidity, dew, or other "moisture" so scientifically speaking, I have no models to work with. I am simply suggesting – you can repackage them and keep them dry and they seem to last for a while. I have had some tablets in a small container and they worked good as new for 2 weeks after the foil package was opened. I think the foil packaging is to keep the tablets dry. There are numerous suitable containers, one being a film canister (35mm size)
If my guess is right about the MicroPur being similar chemically to the swimming pool chlorine tablets, they should last a good long time, the pool tablets work after being opened and 1 bag has lasted over a month of treating my pool water. That is IF they are the same Clorine Dioxide. In order to test this theory, It will take me a month or so…!
maybe someone else can testify on behalf of prior knowledge.

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