Frontier Emergency Water Filter System

[Little Rickie]

http://aquamira.com/consumer/aquamira-frontier-filter

Has anyone ever used it?

I'm thinking with a small modification (hole) in a bottle cap this could be used with any light weight plastic water/pop bottle?

This is what I'm thinking. I have larger filters and pills. Don't always want to carry or use them. This thing is cheap, 1 oz and it looks easy enough to put through a pop bottle cap and squeeze water through. 3 microns seem acceptable since my larger filters are the same. If I use it for day hikes it's good for 15-20 days, that a season or two for me and then I get a new one.

Has anyone ever used one?

Chip, I think it's time for a poll.

 

[nartreb]

Looks like the filter would take up a lot of the space in the bottle.

It says it's designed to be used for "up to 20 gallons" in its whole lifetime, on the theory that this is an "emergency" filter, not one you actually expect to use daily. I assume that means it starts clogging before reaching 20 gallons of normal use. I don't know how they tested it, but I sure would take some backup if I expected to encounter water that was actually dirty or silty.

In short, this is a toy. In a real emergency, just drink the damn water and deal with giardia later.

I do wonder how you're supposed to "use with water treatment drops"...

 

[TDawg]

The way I understand it, at a 3 micron filter size (Katadyn Hiker Pro is .3 Micron,) it seems this is best used only in an emergency (refer to nartreb,) or when combined with another form of purification like bleach or drops/tablets. This won't filter out bacterias as they are too small for the filter. This product gets the Crypto and Giardia, secondary treatment gets the bacteria.

Then again, if you chose your sources wisely you probably don't need to treat (famous last words.) I'll stick with my drops.

 

[Little Rickie]

Have either of you, or anyone else, used any .3 micron filter and had any problem?

For the price 20 gallons for a season of day hikes would work for me. I have other filters for longer trips.

 

[TDawg]

No problems, besides carrying the 11 ounce weight and the small hassle of dealing with the tubes of the Katadyn HP.

 

[peakbagger]

FWIW I carry aquamira chlorine dioxide solution, it doesnt take up much space, has a long shelf life and kills all the nasties. Any filter technology has the potential to clog especially when exposed to ultrafine sediment. I find these sources at a lot of backcountry ponds surrounded by spruce/fir and have had occasions where I had to scrub a MSR ceramic element every quart of water despite prefiltering.

 

[marty]

FWIW I carry aquamira chlorine dioxide solution, it doesnt take up much space, has a long shelf life and kills all the nasties

Completely agree. I will never use a filter while hiking/backpacking again. The 3 ounce weight is hard to beat, too.

 

[DougPaul]

FWIW I carry aquamira chlorine dioxide solution, it doesnt take up much space, has a long shelf life and kills all the nasties.

One should note that the contact times required to kill certain nasties can be rather long. From Wilkerson, Medicine for Mountaineering, 6ed, pg71: "Contact times for inactivation of Cryptosporidia listed by Pristine range from fifteen minutes in warm water using a triple dose to seven hours using a single dose in 39.2 deg F (4 deg C) water." (bolding mine).

(Pristine makes a product very similar to aquamira liquid.)

You also might want to read the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) reports:
http://aquamira.com/consumer/aquami...sds_aquamira_water_treatment_drops_part_a.pdf
http://aquamira.com/consumer/aquami...sds_aquamira_water_treatment_drops_part_a.pdf
http://aquamira.com/consumer/aquami...sds_aquamira_water_treatment_drops_part_b.pdf

Doug

 

[Little Rickie]

http://aquamira.com/consumer/aquamira-frontier-filter

Has anyone ever used it?

I'm thinking with a small modification (hole) in a bottle cap this could be used with any light weight plastic water/pop bottle?

This is what I'm thinking. I have larger filters and pills. Don't always want to carry or use them. This thing is cheap, 1 oz and it looks easy enough to put through a pop bottle cap and squeeze water through. 3 microns seem acceptable since my larger filters are the same. If I use it for day hikes it's good for 15-20 days, that a season or two for me and then I get a new one.

Has anyone ever used one?

Chip, I think it's time for a poll.[/QUOTE]

 

[nartreb]

Have either of you, or anyone else, used any .3 micron filter and had any problem?

I've had the Katahdin Hiker for many years, it finally died (broken valve, inside the casing where I can't repair/replace it) recently. I've replaced the filter cartridge maybe twice over the years.
In Alaska where the streams are extremely silty (the "soil" is basically a fine volcanic ash, there is no vegetation, and the streams move fast enough to carry large gravel) it slowed down noticeably after a few days of heavy use. Backflushing restored it to nearly normal each time. Didn't have the prefilter sleeve in those days, that might have helped.

Thinking about the MSR Hyperflow as a replacement, should be lighter and faster. Anybody here use it? Supposedly the original version had some problems but those have been fixed? Do you really need to backflush it if you're just using it on New Hampshire stream water?

Also I think I need a full treatment system for Peru in the fall. I imagine that a filter that can strain viruses will be pretty slow and/or bulky.

 

[DougPaul]

Also I think I need a full treatment system for Peru in the fall. I imagine that a filter that can strain viruses will be pretty slow and/or bulky.

Viruses are too small to be stopped by many (all?) filters.

Options:
* Boiling is 100% effective.
* Filtering (stops protozoa and bacteria) followed by iodine (1 ppm is enough to kill viruses). Chlorine dioxide might be ok to substitute for the iodine, but I don't know.

Problems with other methods:
* filtering alone can let viruses though
* UV doesn't work well with turbid water
* Chlorine dioxide, hypochlorous acid (MIOX) and iodine are both slow to kill protozoa

Wilkerson, 6th ed has a good section on water treatment.

Doug

 

[Little Rickie]

Thinking about the MSR Hyperflow as a replacement, should be lighter and faster. Anybody here use it? .

I just bought that last week and also got the aquqmira to test as a super light weight option to test. I only used the Hyperflow once in the field this last Saturday. I'll have to use it a few more times to see if it's a keeper. I saved the box.

It is faster, one less tube to fuss with. I don't think the weight difference from the Hiker is enough to get excited about. If it is trully easier and faster to use then it's a keeper.

The filler cap only works on wide mouth bottles which are heaver than my pop bottles so the weigh advantage isn't there for me. I'll tinker with that some and see what I can do to use my lighter bottles.

Within a year or two I bet there will be a new generation of filters to check out.