prefilter material for silt?

fossana

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I'm about to head to Escalante/Glen Canyon again, which is super silty right now. The pores on my gold coffee prefilter are too big to block the silt last time, and l was only mildly successful with gravity or the fabric I had on hand. I tried alum, but the water tasted nasty afterward; I suspect that I added too much. It took me a long time to backflush the silt out of my Sawyer after the last trip, and I only filtered a few times from the river.

I'm curious whether a tightly woven poly fabric, like interfacing might work. Similar fabric is used for silt fences for run-off control, as well as pool filters.
 
I've not had good luck filtering out this stuff, but as I'm sure you know it often settles out overnight if you have some time.

I also have a bottle of some sort of non-alum flocculant that I got from a river rafting company, but I've not been forced to use it so far. I guess I should just try it out!

last month in the Trachyte area all of the water was quite silty but it settled out fine so we didn't need to resort to extreme measures.
 
ive used my bandanna. works or not?
 
You really only need like, a fraction of a teaspoon of alum for a few liters of water, and you shouldn't be able to taste it at all that level of dilution. A pinch or two probably would do the job. Worked great for me on the Green River.

I know the flavor you're talking about though because I've gotten some of the crystals in my mouth before. Very sour and gives you dry mouth.
 
In the past on my Katadyn Vario Filter I‘ve used several tea bags as a pre
filter. Not bad.

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Thanks, everyone for the tips. Bob, I tried a bandana the last trip, but the silt was too fine and passed through.
 
I take a gallon water jug (milk jug style) that weighs 1-2 oz. I don't fill it quite to the top so that it's easier to swirl or stir the 1/8th to 1/5th tsp of alum and mix it up well. People say that you need to wait overnight. I find that anywhere from 30 min to a couple of hours will suffice. I got lazy last week and only waited 15 minutes one time and it wasn't long enough.
As a secondary method to try to extend the life of my Sawyer: before pouring it into my Sawyer 2L bags, I filter it with 25-micron honey/hash-making mesh squares. I make a funnel from a cut-off top 3" of a 1L water bottle. I use the blue Sawyer coupler to screw the funnel onto the top of the Sawyer bag, then lay the mesh over the funnel. That's basically no better than the gold coffee filter, but it's just what I've settled on.
Side question: It wasn't until I was deep in the backcountry a few weeks ago that I realized my Sawyer was "calcified" from letting it sit since last season. So I ended up drinking some dirt with chlorine tablet backups (it was fine). It had only been used once in a clean water environment, then I backflushed with vinegar and distilled water to make sure my tap water minerals didn't destroy it in storage for 4-5 months. What gives? I've read once that thru-hikers can use a single Sawyer Squeeze for an entire year as long as you never let it go completely dry. I don't want to keep pushing water through it at home from November to March, but I also hate wasting plastic and money buying new ones constantly. Thoughts?
 
I don't want to keep pushing water through it at home from November to March, but I also hate wasting plastic and money buying new ones constantly. Thoughts?

Have you tried soaking it in the vinegar solution overnight, potentially with a gravity feed system to force the water through? Some people have been able to restore flow that way.
 
Have you tried soaking it in the vinegar solution overnight, potentially with a gravity feed system to force the water through? Some people have been able to restore flow that way.
No, and unfortunately I through that one away out of spite once back to civilization. But thanks, I will try that for next season!
 
Reporting back on my at home test results. I used water from our local creek, which is silty but not to the degree of the Escalante River. I tried the following techniques:

1. gravity (overnight)
2. alum
3. gold coffee filter
4. paper coffee filter
5. high thread count cotton
6. poly interfacing (I only had lightweight on hand)
7. sand

Alum worked the best, with the paper coffee filter second. There was some other milky substance that remained in suspension with all methods aside from alum.
 
Half-assed science. I am not not willing to shell out for a turbidity meter or the time/materials to make an arduino one, but I just noticed the Secchi disk method. :)
related, a bit of science I'd be super interested in is a comparison of the effectiveness of different water treatment/filtration methods on biological pathogens, for water from various parts of the CO plateau. but this seems difficult.
 
Haven't got sick with what I use in 25 years.... So I don't fret over it. No need for me to analyze it.
 
related, a bit of science I'd be super interested in is a comparison of the effectiveness of different water treatment/filtration methods on biological pathogens, for water from various parts of the CO plateau. but this seems difficult.
I'd be interested in seeing regular coliform counts and cyanobacteria test results from more of the CO Plateau watersheds. In the Escalante/Glen Canyon area, they only monitor Calf and Willis Creeks. Last April, the Escalante was warm and there was a lot of algae.
 
I'd be interested in seeing regular coliform counts and cyanobacteria test results from more of the CO Plateau watersheds. In the Escalante/Glen Canyon area, they only monitor Calf and Willis Creeks. Last April, the Escalante was warm and there was a lot of algae.
yeah... there's some stuff that I'd really like to know, like where to worry about various pathogens, especially stuff like metals that can't be treated chemically. like, when you see beaver-cut trees and cow pies then it's obvious that there's probably giardia in the water, but what else is there that one might want to worry about?

like @Bob says, I mostly don't worry too much about this stuff and mostly never have problems -- but some things like chemical contaminants in agricultural / mining runoff would be nice to know about, similar with cynobacteria poisons
 
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