Hi all,
I've been searching the forums for all the posts on steripen and aquastar.
I currently use the steripen but the thought of cross contamination worries me. I fill a bottle from a creek and pour this water into my pot where I treat it with the steripen. But there are still a few drops above the water level from pouring.
I'm thinking that teaming up a steripen prefilter with the aquastar would solve this problem. The prefilter protects the threads from untreated water. After the bottle is full, the prefilter could them be removed and the aquastar used to treat it. I assume since is screws onto the bottle that the aquastar can be inverted, so as to treat all the water.

Any thoughts?

Edited by wentworth on 11/03/2008 14:55:54 MST.

Why not just treat the water in your bottle directly with the Steri Pen?

Because the water on the threads and droplets above the waterline would be left untreated.

I use a soft-sided Nalgene canteen (1L) with my Steripen. I simple squeeze the sides of the Nalgene to bring the water level to the top and spill a little over the top. Takes care of the droplets.

Well if you're worried about droplets on the mouth of the water bottle then just wipe them off with your clothing.

Truthfully this isn't as if you’re handling a toxic substance. A few drops of untreated water will not harm you.

If you survive the drive to the trailhead I think your luck will hold out if you come into contact with a couple of rogue untreated water droplets. How many times have you swam in a lake, pond, river, etc? Chances are you've ingested more than a few drops of the water and been just fine.

Adam

This is one of the reasons (although a minor one) that I gave up on the Steripen. I wasn't concerned for me--as others have said, a few drops don't matter. I was, however, very concerned for my grandchildren (ages 6 and 8).

Edited by hikinggranny on 11/04/2008 13:59:37 MST.

Thankyou all for the replies.
Would you bother wiping a handwipe around the threads? would dettol or similar have any effect on crypto?
Or is this just being over cautious?

Personally I think you're being overly cautious.

I've used my Steripen for around 14 days in northern Minnesota (organic matter, crypto, tapeworm, ect.) and never and any issues with the droplets of water that were not treated.

Besides you said that you where treating your water using the Steripen in a pot. I believe you are supposed to use containers that you can see through otherwise the UV treatment won't work as well. Basically by using you cooking pot you haven't been using the Steripen to obtain fully treated water.

I remember a forum discussion where an engineer went over the testing processes and the basic conclusion was that in the parts per million (PPM) involved the threads on the bottle simply don't have enough volume of contaminated water to establish a colony / infection. You could dump that untreated water into the liter of water and it'd still be clean enough to pass the 99.999% removal tests. UV treated water with untreated threads would likely have less living harmful bacteria than treated water would at the minimum recommended wait time.

Not to mention the fact UV nails viruses as well which most filters can't even try to do.

That said, if you are worried, simply screw the cap mostly on turn the bottle upside down allowing the clean water to flush off the untreated. This is a very easy and effective method.

Edited by slacklinejoe on 11/06/2008 10:31:10 MST.

"I believe you are supposed to use containers that you can see through otherwise the UV treatment won't work as well."

Not true. The UV lamps work like a light bulb, just in a different spectrum, it creates it's own "light". Also, the water's surface reflects the UV rays back down into the water so even in a pot, as does any clear container as well. The uv rays bounce around enough to do the job.

Edited by slacklinejoe on 11/06/2008 10:32:01 MST.

Ah! I took a look at the Steripen website and it said that the water you where treating was supposed to be translucent enough for you to see through, not the container. I apologize for the mistake.

I think my memory is starting to fail me!

I don't use a StriPen, but... why don't you dip the water with your pot?

My drinking container never touches untreated water. Statistics not withstanding, I've read that 3 Giardia cystis is all it takes to infect you.

Edited by redleader on 11/05/2008 07:26:48 MST.

It actually takes a minimum of 10 cysts to give a person in poor health a case of Guardia. In a healthy adult it typically takes between 25-35 cysts to give you Guardia.

One more question for the steripen users. I read a review of the steripen in which the batteries were drained after leaving them in the pen for 2 weeks. Since reading this I have taken to only inserting the batteries prior to use, then taking them out afterwards. This is pretty tedious. Does anyone just leave them in for the duration of the trip?

Just read this too:
" Another problem with UV treatment is that the damage done to the pathogens with UV light can be reversed if the water is exposed to visible light (specifically 330-500 nm) through a process known as photoreactivation."

http://standeyo.com/News_Files/Water/Water_FAQs3.html

Anyone heard of this?

Photoreactivation? Insufficent for protozoan cysts? Is the author of that page high on himself or what?

UV scrabmles the DNA of both bacteria and viruses thus not allowing them to reproduce.

There are just vague "tests" he mentions but no citations yet there are tons of independant documented tests regarding UV sterilization. After all, they use it in hospitals. The page looks like he's ticked off that the industry has moved on past iodine and has made it his overzealous mission to resurrect it's usage.

> UV nails viruses as well which most filters and chemicals don't even try to do.

no expert here but I always thought viruses were first to die to the chemical treatments.

> no expert here but I always thought viruses were first to die to the chemical treatments.

You know what, your right, I meant to limit that statement just to filters, not other chemical treatments. Viruses only take a few minutes of exposure to chlorine dioxide but I don't know the time frame of effectiveness for other chemicals.

>One more question for the steripen users. I read a review of the steripen in which the batteries were drained after leaving them in the pen for 2 weeks. Since reading this I have taken to only inserting the batteries prior to use, then taking them out afterwards. This is pretty tedious. Does anyone just leave them in for the duration of the trip?< a d

Well I believe it depends on the model of SteriPEN you're using. I personally use the Adventure model and have the batteries in the dang thing for the past. . .three months without any issues.

Granted that the batteries are supposed to only last for around 15 gallons of water before being replaced but I haven't had them go dead from just sitting on the shlef.

Edited by chadnsc on 11/06/2008 11:57:24 MST.