Tablets or liquid? Pros and cons? Thanks in advance.
Tablets or liquid? Pros and cons? Thanks in advance.
Liqiid, Tablets take longer to activate, and it eased to adjust dose for cloudy or tepid water. I still carry some tablets as back up adout 10.
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Liquid. Still takes about 20 minutes. Not a problem once you get used to it.
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Definitely liquid. I think you are "supposed" to wait something like 2 hours with the tablets? No thank you.
Liquid. Simple, easy, nothing to break.
The only downside to the liquid is when they leak out into your hipbelt pocket when in storage for several months, bleaching and weakening the fabric. Don't ask me how I know this one.
As others said, tablets take too long to be of use except treating overnight.
+5 on liquid...
use the liquid. It's easy to use on the trail. I would only take the tablets as an emergency treatment method if you had an overnite hike and couldn't bring the liquid.
I used the liquid my whole hike. 5 minutes to activate, 15 in the water, or 30 if it's especially dirty water. You can even pre-mix the drops in a separate container. It will save you the initial 5 minutes but is only good for about 24 hours after mixing.
Liquid. Never had one leak.
Or, alternately, into your toiletries bag that contains your toothbrush. Toothpaste gets a funny taste and consistency when you unwittingly squeeze it onto a brush coated in chlorine dioxide.
That said, Aqua Mira droplets are still my favorite treatment method. Now I keep them in a double mini-Ziploc setup ALL BY THEMSELVES, somewhere easily reachable.
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I Like the drops and they dont break like tablets can.
Liquid works fine
I use a little wedding bottle to premix it, and I do that while still hiking about 10min before water stop. Then I get my water from the stream and ass the premixed from the wedding bottle and keep hiking, usually up the next damn hill, and start drinking it after 10 min or so. Or I just drink from the dang stream as God intended.
Put the liquid into to a heavier duty zip lock plastic bag.
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How does this compare to bleach, I have no point of reference.
Bleach is cheaper.
Aqua Mira is fine, like it, do not like having to wait 30 minutes. More and more I have done better not carrying extra water which means more often I get to a water supply empty. Bought a Sawyer Squeeze to use on my next hike.............like fresh water with no chemicals I can drink at once.
To manage the 20-30 minute wait time, I carry two 20 oz bottles. I fill them up before I leave for the trailhead, placing one in each of my pack's side pockets. On the trail, I drink out the the bottle in the right-hand pocket. When it's empty, I refill it from whatever water source is there, and treat it with AquaMira liquid. I then move the bottle from the left-hand pocket into the right-hand pocket, and start drinking out of it. By the time it's empty, the treated water from the refill is ready.
I find this rotation works very well, almost never making me wait to drink, drink water after minimal treatment time, etc. It works best if I've two different colors of bottle caps, so my feeble brain can easily tell which water is treated/being treated.
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