Question:
It occurred to me as I was reading some posts about water storage and purification that theaquarium hobby had a lot to offer the survivalist. Having been involved with the hobby for a numberof years, I'll put my two cents in in the hopes that it may be helpful. First of all on the subject of using chlorine to keep stored water clear and free of bacteriathere was some question as to the flavor and the safety chlorine. Chlorine can be easily removedfrom water with aeration. This can be accomplished with a small pump and a length of tubing sizedto fit over the outlet of the pump and the outlet of the hose suspended several inches above thewater's surface. I can't remember the amount of time necessary, but, 24hours will certainly be longenough. This is best done in manageable batches, in a 30 gallon trash can used only for watertreatment for example. Any unpleasant odors or tastes can be removed with filter carbon which is readily available andrelatively inexpensive. you don't really need to buy an aquarium filter, be creative, an empty sodabottle filled with carbon, with the tubing you already are using to aerate the water connected tothe neck and small holes cut in the bottom of the bottle (either small enough to keep the carbonfrom escaping or the entire bottle can be wrapped in an old pair of panty hose; washed, of course ) If you hang the bottle filter over your barrel you'll be killing two birds with one stone. Asfar as how long to filter the water before consuming it, find the rating for your pump, this willbe expressed as either gpm(gallons per minute) or gph(gallons per hour) and let it run until theentire volume cycles through several times. I've never seen any guideline for filtering water fordrinking but, I'd let it cycle at least 5 or 6 times. Another addition to your bottle filter couldbe filter floss which is nothing more than cotton batting which has not been treated with anychemicals or dyes, it too is inexpensive. This will trap particles and keep the water from becomingcloudy. As far as removing bacteria, fungus, germs, and any other little microscopic beasties, look into aUV Sterilizer what this is is a piece of pipe with a cathode tube in it which emits UV radiation tokill any microorganisms in the water. This too can possibly be hooked up in line with your filter.Slower flow rates are better with a sterilizer, the longer water takes to go through the more iskilled per pass. I recall seeing a formula somewhere relating to flow rate and number ofpasses(complete volume of water) through sterilizers of different sizes to achieve 99.99999999%sterilization. If I find the formula (and anybody is interested) I'll post it. That I believe, for the purposes of this group are the most practical uses for aquarium productfor water purification for human consumption. There are other good products out there ,but, muchless efficient for this type of purpose. Reverse Osmosis, for example produces water which is 99+%sterile in a single pass but is extremely slow (as little as 10 gallons a day) and wastes up to 9times as much as it purifies. if you decide to look into this as a way of handling your water purification needs, look to mailorder rather than retail. pet shops have an incredible amount of overhead with livestock and so onand in turn have a mark-up of up to 4 time the price of mail order. You can buy a complete canisterfilter to handle your needs or piecemeal it using plastic tubing and PVC pipe from a hardwarestore, it all depends on you . if anybody is interested, I'll dig out some of my old catalogs forthe names and addresses of some of the mail order places. Or you could pick up a copy of,Freshwater and Marine Aquarium or, Tropical Fish magazine from the newsstand and order somecatalogs.

Answer: Your making Ozone here.

It is effective as long as you have power, but only to a'finite' degree.

Once the power is switched off, within 3 or 4 seconds, youhave no residual sanitation properties remaining. Anythingthat gets into the water then immediately starts to grow.i.e bird poop, crawling bug germs, wind borne pathogens, andcritters already in the water not fully "killed" as of yet.

Teledyne Laars recently made a UV light Ozonator forswimming pools which used two LARGE tubes, and I do meanLARGE as in output, and 240 volts running 24 hours a day.

One of my clients who refused to listen to me........... swore that the water feltsoooo much better and soooo smooth and silky as compared tousing chlorine.

Her husband is a Doctor, and one afternoon I visited themwhile they were having a swim.

With the good Doctor, both his children and his Lovely wifein the pool talking to me about how happy they were withtheir new $2000.00 Ozone system, Not Installed by me mindyou, I carefully tested the water they were swimming inwhile they watched. No sanitizer, pH level off the scale,and a curious haze residing in the water and body oil on thesurface.

The lovely wife, all of 23 years old, < *pant pant*> wasremarking how smooth the water felt to her skin and howhappy she was to be rid of Chlorine. Especially for heryoung daughters hair.

I carefully removed their automatic pool cleaner from thepool and had them feel the layer of CLEAR ALAGE on the hosesand plastic that felt like............ well..... for lack ofa better descriptor..........snot. Not just any snot mindyou, but I mean big hairy hound dog drool slobber when itshot snot.

I explained to them what it was and that they were swimmingin it.It was also all over all of the walls and the floor, but youcannot see CLEAR ALGAE. Their eyes got really big and theirmouths dropped open, as they had been enjoying the freedomof a "chlorine free" pool for 2 weeks now.

After I explained that if this Algae can grow in here, socan any Virus, Germ or Bacteria. Needless to say, the goodDoctor immediately told me to do whatever I had to do to gethis pool safe for the Family and to send him the bill.

Little water puddles marked their exodous into the house.

I Shocked the pool with about 15 pounds of chlorine andturned the Ozone system off. We honestly tried everythingin our power to make it work for weeks prior, just to humorthe good Doctor. < and to prove a point >

Shortly thereafter, Teledyne Laars STOPPED making theseunits, due to them not being able to properly sanitize thewater as advertized, even running the unit 4 times longerthan recommended in the literature. They suggest 8 hours perday. I cannot even buy parts for them anymore, and thisincident happened last spring.

I guess the point of this story is ........Become a Doctorand marry a beautiful wife of 23 years of age .

Then hire a professional to treat your water, save yourmoney and listen to his advice before you spend $2000.00getting rooked by someone.

And dont Ever Ever leave your 23 year old Wife alone withhim and a bottle of suntan lotion.