I’m getting fed up with Aqua mira

"2. pressure change between my house and the mountains are causing the leaking." What elevation gain are we talking about? I live at 52' and have popped many an item.

Right now I'm at 2500, usually trail heads start around 6000 around here, then lets say I camp at 8000 at a lake. That's not even counting the days where we go over a pass or hike a summit at 10-11K. So, even the 8000' lake its getting wet (though it could be the other factors too)

I would recapped them at the trailhead. That's a big enough change to cause you issues I think.

I can happily state that I have never used Aqua Mira. My chemical treatment of water has always been Katadyn Micro Pur chlorine dioxide tablets. -> easy to use -> long storage time -> easy to pack -> always work for me, even with cattle trough water

Sounds like you're fed up with the Clelland method, not the AM. I use the original package droppers… never leaked… never forgot to fill them up. oh, but the 2oz weight penalty I'm so burned with… let me expand on that:

use soda bottle and Squeeze : ) but if you don't want a bottle to leak when you go up in altitude, when you're at low altitude, squeeze half the air out of the container, then close the lid. As you go up in altitude, the air will expand, but not to the point it puts pressure on the bottle I do that with water bottles

I have to say I'm somewhat enamored with using the mini inline during the hike, then hanging the dirty bladder in camp for a gravity filter while I set up. On the CT this summer it worked like a champ! I never struggled to drink from it, and I spent literally NO time filtering water. Just fill up the dirty bladder and off I went.

Thank you for the comments so far.

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I use the original package droppers… never leaked… never forgot to fill them up.

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That is an idea. If you have had large altitude changes while you used them, and they didn't leak, that would anecdotally imply that my issue is either with crushing (the original aquamira bottles are harder) or with the droppers themselves leaking from like being upside down. An option I could do is buy the aquamira bottles that have the droppers (I normally buy the 2 oz containers …so 4 oz total…that don't have droppers on them), dump the 1oz containers into the 2 oz containers, and use those via the clelland method. My weight penalty would just be the additional plastic (and volume) of the larger containers.

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My chemical treatment of water has always been Katadyn Micro Pur chlorine dioxide tablets. -> easy to use -> long storage time -> easy to pack -> always work for me, even with cattle trough water

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Yes, tabs are my backup….I think I would switch to tabs…or maybe even my sawyer mini, if I was going solo. As stated in my first post though…usually I'm out with a group of 3+ people -> Aquamira is great b/c its generally cheaper than tabs, and its much quicker than a sawyer mini when doing groups (I usually treat 4L+ at a time). Another advantage over tabs is its easier to do weaker doses….like I said, most of my water sources are excellent, so I rarely do a full dose. Yes, you can do that with tabs, but its easier with drops, especially when the group is carrying a variety of 16, 20, 24, 32oz, etc plastic bottles. So I really would like to lick the leaking problem….then I can rest easy at night over this dilemma.

Dan, I'm a huge fan of C's AM pre-mix and think it is worth the effort to overcome this small problem. I use the tabs at night in the 1l Platys, but you state perfectly the rationale for using the pre-mix method during the day. I almost always use 20oz Gatorade bottles (and quite often a single one when water sources are reliable), and it's especially relevant if you're treating a smaller volume and require much quicker results.

Bob, Do you have any issue with leaking bottles?

Dan, I noticed it a couple of times with approximately 3-4000ft elevation difference. Per Jerry's comment above, I think it helps to evacuate the air (squeeze 'em! lol) somewhat if there's some airspace in there. Also, it seems to me that after about 10-15 trips the seal on that pull-out nipple on the 3ml bottles might not be so good, so if I do all the other tricks and they still leak I just chuck them and use a new one. I bought a whole bunch of them from US Plastics.

I buy my mini dropper bottles from Gossamer Gear and haven't had a problem with leaking. I've used one set for at least two years. I live at sea level and haven't had any issues going from sea level to 7-9k. I hiked the JMT this summer and sent two additional sets in my resupply. No leaking even after summiting Whitney. Maybe it is the quality of the bottles you are using. I bought some cheap dropper bottles for soap/ hand sanitizer and some of those leak.

You could be right……some of the ones I've been using have been eye care droppers that I've cleaned and repurposed….

Beware–leakage of Aqua Mira caused bleaching of the fabric of a backpack's hip belt pocket. The AM was repackaged in smaller black and white dropper bottles which were carried inside plastic bags, but that wasn't enough protection. (It was quite a long time ago and I don't remember the origin of the bottles or the elevation change.)

I tried AM on one trip only. I much prefer Sawyer or Steripen over AM or tablets. Not only did I not like the taste, but it was way too much of a hassle. 1. Should be easy to test leaking due to crushing. I use contact lens dropper bottles for repellent and soap, and I can't get them to leak if I squeeze as hard as possible. 2. I don't think pressure changes would be a factor if the bottles don't leak when squeezed.

Just to resurrect this thread…I believe I am switching back to aquamira. After more use, leaking is not from crushing…it is from air pressure changes. All I need to do is keep my dropper bottles inside the car, slightly open, when traveling to the trailhead (where I can get several thousand feet elevation change from house to trailhead), and then I’m fine. Its easy to see the problem when you are also traveling with water bottles that don’t get opened and they are all deformed when I get back to the house from the pressure changes.

squeeze out most of the air when you’re at low elevation

I was quite surprised to find my AM bottles (full, unopened) that I carried the length of the JMT as a backup for my Sawyer filter were empty when I got home. I now carry AM tablets as a backup rather than the drops…

The chance of getting sick is small, at least somewhere like the Sierras

If you always drink untreated water, eventually, maybe, you’ll get sick one time, so it’s a good idea to treat water

But, you really don’t need a backup.  If the chance of your treatment failing is small, then just drink untreated water.  Maybe this situation will never happen.  How many people have had their treatment fail?  Especially if you have it dialed in and you know how to avoid common problems like with Steripen or Squeeze.

At least, if your treatment fails and you have no backup, just drink untreated water.  The risk of dehydration is larger than illness from bad water

If you’re susceptible, like if you’ve gotten sick before, then bring backup

 

I’m a belt and suspenders kind of guy so I like to be covered, particularly in more heavily traveled areas like along the JMT. That said, I get your point and maybe I should just carry a few AM tablets rather than a full package of them. for sketchier parts where I might question other people’s sanitation choices. There are certainly many spots in the Sierra where the water is coming out of the snowfield that is *right over there* so the risk of contamination is very low.

the cost and weight of a backup is small so it makes sense

maybe the most important idea is that if one’s treatment fails and have no backup, drink untreated water rather than getting dehydrated

Steripen…with tablets as a backup. But the Befree is so light, you could just  use that as a water bottle and have it as a backup.

I guess that I expect people in a group to filter their own water..but I don’t have children to account for.

Yeah I hike with my teenage son more often than not, which leads to an interesting scenario: he’s stronger than I am so I’ll just give him all the backup/shared gear. Also, I’ve lowered his baseweight by ~3.5 pounds in the last six months so I don’t feel bad about asking him to carry a little bit of extra gear. He’s probably at a 10 or 11 pound baseweight although that is just a guess.

From a 2016 PCT thruhike I know at least a half dozen folks that ended up with giardia, several of them professionally diagnosed.  (This is not counting the Kennedy meadows south sickness, which was a legit health concern.)  And I know of many people who had their treatment system fail… blown out squeeze bags, dead batteries, broken pump handles, seriously clogged filters, cracked ceramic filters, etc.  For the most part I do agree that these things are rare, but in my experience they aren’t rare enough to ignore out of hand, especially on a trip longer than a week or two where the sickness might rear its head far from porcelain thrones.  Ironically, we had our pump filter almost come close to being unusable due to clogging, and then when we reached for our backup AM drops we found that they had leaked everywhere!  So we were close to having our primary and backup treatments fail.  Personally, I will be going with a tablet based backup in the future.  Very robust and very light.  Seems like a good balance.