If you’ve never heard of shungite, you’re not alone. This rare mineral compound only comes from Russia. First found near the village of Shunga, in the region of Karelia, Russia, the largest known deposit is in the Lake Onega area. Two other finds, in the same region of Russia contain the mineraloid. Considering that this territory was part of the now-defunct Soviet Union for the bulk of the last century, it’s not surprising that it is not widely known.
This mineraloid (a naturally occurring mineral substance, that doesn’t have a crystalline structure) is made up of 98 percent carbon, by weight, which probably explains its properties. In addition to the carbon, shungite is reported to contain most of the elements in the Periodic Table, in trace amounts.
Probably the most interesting fact about this mineraloid, from a scientific viewpoint, is that it is reported to contain fullerenes, a fairly rare carbon form or “allotrope”.
A fullerene is a sphere, roughly resembling a soccer ball, made of at least 60 carbon atoms connected together by single and double atomic bonds. These form a partially closed mesh, hollow on the inside. Perhaps it is this molecular structure which gives shungite its ability to purify water.
Related: Does Water Really Expire?
Various Uses of Shungite
Shungite is a definite part of folk healing, specifically the area of healing with minerals and crystals.
It has apparently been in use for thousands of years as a healing crystal, even though it isn’t a crystal.
Those who move in this area have made many claims about the healing properties of shungite, although the scientific testing to prove these claims has not been undertaken.
This hasn’t stopped it from being used though. Shungite has been in use since the time of Ivan the Terrible, who used to take baths in the water of Lake Onega, reportedly receiving benefits from the shungite infused waters. Peter the Great was so impressed with it that he built the first spa in Russia to take advantage of the healing properties.
Shungite has also been used in the cosmetics industry and as a pigment for paint, sold under the name “carbon black”. But probably the most unusual use of shungite has been as a shield for EMF (electromagnetic field, which all electronic devices have).
There has been much fear mongering, possibly with some basis in fact, that EMF is as dangerous to us as atomic radiation. While there is no scientific proof of this yet, supposedly shields of shungite can be used to protect you from the EMF produced by your cell phone and personal computer.
Related: The Safe Zones After an EMP
Using Shungite to Purify Water
The one scientifically proven use for shungite is for the treatment and purification of water.
I’m not sure of this, but apparently the fullerenes in the shungite work much like activated carbon to purify water.
With activated carbon (or activated charcoal) it is the huge large surface area, broken into thousands of facts and exceeding 3,000 m2 per gram, which captures bacteria, protozoa and other microbes.
Fullerenes provide a similar sort of surface area, which could explain the mechanism by which shungite purifies water. It is known that fullerenes work as an antiviral agent.
But whether that is true or not, this property of purifying water has been proven through scientific testing. But not only does shungite remove microscopic pathogens from the water, it also removes almost all metals, nitrates, pesticides, volatile organics, pharmaceuticals, chlorine and fluoride. However, it is not a very effective fluoride filter, as the fluoride fills the pores in the shungite quickly, just as it does with activated carbon.
Related: The SHTF Diet: Minimum Food And Water Supply For 3 Months
In addition, water infused with shungite has been shown to smooth wrinkles and eliminate skin irritations, such as itching and rashes. This has not yet been proven scientifically though.
To treat water with shungite, a ratio of 100g of shungite per liter of water should be used. Before use, rinse the shungite to remove any dust particles, just as you would with activated carbon. Then place the shungite in the water and allow to sit for 30 minutes.
That’s enough time to remove microscopic pathogens and make the water safe to drink. If you want to experiment with using the water for any of the healing properties mentioned above, you’ll need to leave the shungite in it for eight to ten hours.
The shungite is not used up by this action and can be reused many times over. It is recommended to air dry the shungite in direct sunlight once every month and replace it after six months of use.
When It’s Time to Survive
Since shungite only comes from one region of Russia, you’re obviously not going to be able to find it locally, or order it online in a post-disaster world. You would need to buy it and store it now, as part of your survival stockpile. However, be aware that shungite is not very cheap, probably due to its rarity. Don’t expect to buy it for the same price as activated carbon.
The good thing is that shungite doesn’t have a shelf life. So if you buy it and add it to your stockpile, it will be just as good when you go back looking for it, as it is today.
You will probably want to set up some sort of filtering container for using the shungite. This could be easily done with one of the glass beverage servers you see people using at parties in their homes. A plastic one might be better, to avoid the risk of it breaking.
Shungite should not be used like activated carbon, where the water is just poured through it, as the last stage of a bio-filter. While you could use the gravel and sand as early filtration stages to eliminate larger items in the water, you need to allow the water to stand in the portion that contains the shungite, not just flow through it. As I mentioned earlier, it needs 30 minutes to react with the water and purify it.
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So, where does one buy this shungite?
Ebay. Be sure to check the sellers’ ratings. There is one place here (US) that sells it from Karelia. But totally investigate it for a while before you decide who to buy it from. I’ve found that it is much easier to find good sellers of it on Ebay than it is on Amazon. But there are people who will sell fake shungite. I like actually buying it from Karelia. I mean, they REALLY should be the ones making the money from it right? And what I’ve seen from there appears to be real and not fake. It is also supposed to be good at getting rid of EMFs. I have a ball of it (4 or 5 inches) sitting on top of my computer right now. You can also buy it on a necklace to help while you’re on the computer. There are two kinds. Regular and elite. The elits is shiny. It’s been several years since I studied it, and I can’t remember what the difference is, but there is one. I think the elite is not used for water purification. My ball is polished, but is regular and not elite shungite. There is a lady who sells it who seems to know a lot about it. I can’t remember her name, but she did an interview with Kerry Cassidy, so if you go to Project Camelot on youtube, you can look back and find the interview with her and listen to her. She had a lot of info on how it helps with EMFs. If I remember correctly, she said it would NOT help with 5g. But I could be confused on that. If you’re interested and can’t find it let me know, and I’ll find the interview for you, and her store on the internet.
“It is also supposed to be good at getting rid of EMFs. I have a ball of it (4 or 5 inches) sitting on top of my computer right now.”
I hate to rain on anyone’s parade but that isn’t going to protect you from anything (not that your computer is giving off harmful radiation anyway – it’s not). Electromagnetic radiation pretty much travels in a straight line, so a ball of shungite on top of a computer isn’t going to absorb or neutralize the radiation it gives off. A necklace isn’t going to do anything either.
I don’t know about shungite, but if people want to do something about bad energy then look into orgonite.
It has been around since the 1930’s and it doesn’t block anything it just takes bad radiation and converts it it into neutral/beneficial radiation.
If you still want a radiation blocker then you are going to have to go with the tried and true tin foil hat for now.
Thank you for sharing it’s good information does a lot of teen in deer could come in tirad we need to use it
Great Info Elaine! Claude Davis is mistaken (see below comment) Shungite has been scientifically proven to help mitigate EMF’s from wi-fi, cell phones etc. Do your own homework. A great book that references the studies that prove efficacy is: “Shungite Protection Healing and Detoxification” by Regina Martino. I have conducted my own experiments with Shungite using my EMF meter and it does significantly reduce radiation. Wishing you good health! God Bless.
As usual, Ebay to the rescue. $10 per pound for 2 lbs.
Who knows if you are actually getting Shungite, but your chances are better than buying it from Walmart. lol
Hilarious ! Shunga is the Japanese word for pornographic pictures. It is not that unusual to see a Japanese businessman on the train looking at shunga in a manga.
I would suppose that one could order shungite from Putinco, the well known Russian chain of superstores.
Sorry, when I read about shunga, it just turned on the comedian in me. Couldn’t help myself. When French postcards were still in black and white, shunga was in full, glorious color.
16 ounces of shungite chips are for sale for $13 and change at shungite-sales.com No comment about the integrity of that site, just thought I would give the reference.
It took me the time it took to type in shungite and hit the send button to find that site. There well may be more. Might even try Amazon.
Hey I just wanted to provide this tidbit. Take it or leave it, water that has been cleaned using shuganite makes the water acidic, so if you are planning on drinking it in large amounts you may want to bring the ph to slightly alkaline.
HI I hope you dont mind me adding: unfortunately this is incorrect, i tested it my self no change in PH, a company did make this acidity claim only to sell their alcalizing equipment!
Wow! Shungite also protects one from EMF, so if you wear a shungite necklace EMF won’t fry your brain. Amazon sells shungite stones for $23.00 per pound. If you search further than just the first few entries you may find them on Amazon for less than $23.00 per pound. I didn’t spend a lot of time browsing Amazon, nor the web.
Rather than trusting your health to a mineral that you have just now heard about and know next to nothing about, why not just boil your water? No mysterious substances; no chance of running out of the purifying magic beans, just plain old, used for hundreds of years, boiling of water to make it safe to drink and use.
Hi, Chuck. I’m with you on a lot of the things you’ve said. Oh, BTW, I tried the shungite necklace and it wasn’t good enough so I made myself a shungite helmet. Not only does it give me complete protection but also makes a fashion statement. LOL! I also follow the KISS principle, Chuck. Why make things so complicated if you don’t have to? Boiling our water when necessary has kept us safe for many years. If a person feels it’s necessary to uberfilter the water why not just use activated charcoal? And then STILL boil the water. Activated charcoal is an accepted, well known method to filter water. Shungite is supposed to be mostly carbon anyways so why use something exotic and expensive when we have everything here we need? And if a real SHTF happens instead of this fake? pandemic and you’re on the run to your BOL then wouldn’t it be much more handy to have one of those life straws on you with a few replacement filters so that you can drink on the run without sending out smoke signals to let your adversaries know where you are. Apparently they’ll filter something like 1000 litres of water which will get you quite far. 1000 litres is approx. 220 Canadian GALLONS or 257 American gallons.That reminds me that I still have to get a life straw and a few replacement filters. All these little things that I still have to get. I’m going to go off topic (again) and say a few words about that damned virus. When I first heard about it I looked it up on Wikipedia and saw that it was the same family of viruses that also produce the common cold so I didn’t think that much about it. But of course the Chinese have been “messing” around with it and maybe even attempting to weaponize it. Whether it got out by accident or not is irrelevant. It’s out there now and it looks like it’s adapting and mutating. Don’t know whether you guys are aware but in the last few days they’ve had the first human-to-human transmission. Now things could get a little more “interesting”. I could say screw the Chinese and hope they all die but that would open up a huge power vacuum in the region which I’m sure that India and Russia would be more than happy to fill. I would just like to ask one last question of all of you. How effective can those face masks be? A virus is VERY small. Would you not need a sub-micron face mask to stop the virus from infecting you and then change those masks AT LEAST every day and maybe even more depending on where you have to travel? Take care, guys. Stay safe and healthy.
Boiling water does not remove fluoride and other dissolved toxins. I seriously doubt that shungite removes fluoride either. As far as I know the only reliable ways to remove it is chemically, or reverse osmosis filtration.
The shungite may impart some benefits, but I would suggest that you use a good filter + RO system on the water first, especially if you are trying to remove fluoride from tap water.
BTW, as I mentioned in my above comment… Ebay has it for $10 per lb. Possibly, cheaper for larger quantities. That is in raw form.
Amazon will never get another dime of my money, but that is a different story.
dp: The simplest way to remove fluoride from water is to distill it. Now some water obsessors claim that distilled water is bad for the human body as it leaches minerals from the human body. Should your diet consist of nothing but distilled water, I suppose that might be a medical possibility. That said, should your diet consist of nothing but distilled water, the medical probabilities of having other serious problems far outweighs the possibility of mineral deficiency.
Now, let me tell you a real life story. When I was enjoying life while serving with Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children, a fellow USMCer had the ugliest teeth I had ever beheld. Finally, curiosity overcoming ordinary courtesy, I asked him about his teeth which were sort of greenish and mottled with light brown — a pattern that would later become famous as camouflage combat uniforms. He could grin all he wanted in a darkened area, his teeth wouldn’t give him away.
He laughed and said, yeah that he knew they looked bad but he didn’t have a cavity in his mouth and wouldn’t ever get one. He said he came from a town in Colorado where the city water contained fluoride (first I had ever heard of it) and there were no dentists in town because they couldn’t make a living as no one in town had any tooth decay. He said everyone who grew up in that town went to their grave with a complete set of whole teeth.
Now maybe they suffered from early hair loss or early erectile dysfunction, I didn’t know enough to ask, although my fellow Marine had a full head of hair, so I guess if hair loss was a symptom of fluoride whatever, he didn’t exhibit the symptoms yet and erectile disfunction was something discussed at the dinner table in those days.
Back to water distillation. While I certainly don’t claim to be a card carrying water quality engineer, I have spent considerable effort reading up on boiling and distillation and I can tell you there is a considerable amount of misinformation around about both of those processes.
Raising water to a roiling boil at sea level will make the water reach 212°F approximately. I say approximately because dissolved solids in the water can change the exact temperature. As a practical indication, discussions with the local water store who dispenses water processed with the RO method as well as water that has been distilled, revealed that at first they had a boiler that raised the temperature of the water to 219°F. The manager said they had recently installed a new boiler that raised the water temp to a mere 214°F and the savings in electricity were significant with just a 5° difference. How is it possible that they can raise the water to that temperature when everyone knows water boils at 212 one might ask
It is called pressurization. Some cars run hotter than 212 in the car radiator because it is a pressurized system. That’s why there is a spring in the cap on the auto radiator. Water gets above a certain temp and the cap releases the pressure so that the radiator doesn’t explode with the resultant deleterious effect on engine performance.
Outside of a pressurized system, hydrocarbons and organ-phosphates which all have a vapor point of less than 212 vaporize and disperse into the atmosphere. That’s why the two small quantity water distillers that I know of in the marketplace are an open distillation process so that those chemicals can disperse in the atmosphere. Fluoride, chlorine and the other gaseous elements in that region of the periodic table (Aha, I didn’t sleep through every chemistry class) evaporate into the atmosphere as the temperature of the water reaches their vapor points.
Heavy metals, lead, gold, silver, tungsten and metals in that portion of the periodic table, of course, do not vaporize at 212 degrees and so if one is concerned about heavy metals in their drinking water one should run the boiled or distilled water through an activated charcoal filter which will remove the heavy metals in the water.
Why not shortcut the process and just run the water through a charcoal filter right from the get go and save all the labor of boiling/distilling it? Good question. As with all filters, charcoal eventually becomes clogged with the material it is filtering out. Maybe you can backwash it, perhaps removing most of the contaminants, but the fewer contaminants the charcoal takes out, the longer its filtering capabilities will last before either having to add new charcoal or backwashing the filter. Boiled water can be used for many washing purposes besides drinking. You certainly don’t want to wash your dishes in water straight from the creek that runs through town. But you can wash them in plain boiled water.
Reverse osmosis is filtering but requires large quantities of water in the process. Large quantities of water may not be available in an end of the world scenario.
Wood is going to be the go to source for heat in an end of the world scenario. Wood will be available from trees and bushes and also available from burned out buildings of which there will be many. While a piece of wood may be charred, placing it with other pieces of wood will cause it to burn. Houses can be demolished for the wood contained in the rafters, joists and other wooden parts of the home. Wooden furniture can be burned. We will all become quite creative in scavenging wood along with other life necessities.
Boiling kills all living organisms. It will even kill cystic organisms. It takes longer to kill those critters than your ordinary protozoa, but by raising the water to a roiling boil and letting it cool at ordinary temperatures, such as 60+ degrees ambient temperature, the death of cystic parasites is assured. Boiling water at a roiling boil for 10 minutes is overkill and wastes time, energy and water as water has reached it vapor point and you will wind up with less water than you started with. A significant loss when pure water has become as scarce as water in the Sahara.
Governmental agencies recommend a roiling boil for ten minutes to cover their butts. They know that if one does that, every single living thing in the water will be absolutely, positively killed no matter what the ambient temperature might be. It’s like saying “If you want to be sure to kill all the bacteria on your hands, submerge them in a gallon of 98% pure isopropyl alcohol.”
Well, that will certainly insure that your hands are bug free for a while but it is overkill. You can hunt rabbits with a .450 Winchester magnum but why would you?
LCC,
You can’t distill fluoride out of water since it boils right along side the water and ends up right back in your end product. Just an FYI for you.
Heading out the door right now. I will go over the rest of your reply when I get back.
The question is ALWAYS; why?, isn’t it, LLC? You can read the article on fluoride yourself. Makes my head spin. Goddamm, LLC, you surprise the crap out of me every time. I fervently hope that I’m half as good in a decade as you are now. Remember; it’s the motion in the ocean not the size of the boat. LOL! Don’t lick your fingers.
Boiling kills some things but the metals are still there. It concentrates the heavy metals.
boiling water uses a lot of energy. Shungite does not. Boiling also distills it, I don’t think the shungite does that (but I’m not sure). Here’s one of the stores I bought several Shungite objects from. I THINK this is the one I bought several of my spheres (for the computer) from. https://www.ebay.com/str/shungitstore
Hi, Elaine. The article says that Shungite is mostly carbon so why not use activated charcoal instead? To me much easier to source and probably a lot less expensive. And I do not want to send one red cent to those damn Ruskies. By buying their Shungite. They can all crash and burn for all I care. Or move to Chernobyl. LOL!
In other words, you have no idea and no authoritative, referenceable information.
Feel better now?
Bolo: Despite numerous rumors to the contrary there are no magic beans.
Good question. Where does one buy shungite?
I have gotten shungite products from Naima and Tivon. They don’t sell shungite by itself, but they sell products they make using shungite such as sleeping pods, bracelets, and charge plates.
I put one charge plate in the fridge, and my fresh food stays fresher longer.
https://www.ftwproject.com/the-power-of-shungite/
I cannot understand how a hunk of shungite purifies water that does not flow through it. In fact I find the idea ridiculous, no matter how chock full of Fullerines and Bucky Balls and nano ninja emf shields a magic rock might be, the water has to pass through it to be filtered, in fact moving over and through a substrate is the definition of filtration.
Hi Mike: As soon as I read on the seller’s web site that this stuff protected one from emf, the theme music from Twilight Zone cued up and I felt a chill on the back of my neck.
Hey Claude, we sure are getting far afield. Can we get back to some down to earth survival info such as how to feed your chickens and rabbits when the feed store has been totally looted?
Perhaps even run some of the articles that are several years old but deal more with topics of more direct interest to preppers. Even if we assume that this wonder stuff does everything that its proponents claim for it, did you notice that it is only mined in one small region in Russia? Guess how much international trade there will be with remote regions of Russia in a SHTF situation. If you guessed zero, you hit the nail squarely on the head. I am not interested in the curative powers of Himalayan pink ocean salt, nor curative powers of genuine French roquefort. In an end of the world situation, what concerns me most of all is what is available close at hand. There will be no international trade. Anything that is solely available from a foreign source might as well be on the Planet Mongo. We seek real life solutions to real life problems. Please screen these articles and only post ones that are relevant to the purpose of this website.
Again, Chuck, you make so many good points. More practical articles from Claude would be more useful. If someone chooses to believe that this Shungite protects one from Electromagnetic Fields then more power to them. There’s a sucker born every minute. And just to be clear, Chuck, when I was mentioning the necklace and helmet that was all tongue-in-cheek. I have no interest in supporting the Russian economy in any way, shape or form. You are such a practical minded individual you amaze me every time. And you’re absolutely right about a real SHTF scenario. We WILL be reduced to using what’s on hand. At that point our only concerns will be survival. And to do that we need food, water and shelter and some way to defend it. We’ve talked about this ad nauseum. To me, Chuck, you are a voice of reason in a world slowly going mad.
So, this will take giardia, e-Coli and other bacteria and viruses out of water? I have a difficult time believing that dropping one stone of this into a jar of water will clean it and I sure don’t want to be the guinea pig with something like that. Plus I agree with LCC, the more “rare” something is….or exotic, raises my “BS” antenna. And this is coming from a half hippie, half conservative, raised in Texas but lives in CA gal who believes in herbalism as an excellent way of treating many maladies in addition to modern medicine.
With all due respect, I will stick to Clorox and or boiling my water. And using filters.
Xx
I have to agree with you, CAGal. Maybe this Shungite (mostly carbon) works as advertised. And maybe it doesn’t. To me shungite is an unknown and I would rather stick with tried and true especially in a real SHTF situation. I also don’t want to be a lab experiment and risk my life on an unknown. If a true SHTF happens then it will take all our efforts just to survive. I don’t have the time nor the interest to play with diamonds in the making. LOL! You sound like a very good person and one that is still able to think for themselves.
Hi Armin, thank you for the kind words. And yes, when SHTF, we won’t be able to afford to risk getting sick with giardia or anything like that…we will need every ounce of strength and energy!
Happy Saturday evening.
Xx
You sure you did not trip the joke meter a month early?
how about stocking up on a lot of Sawyer Water Filters instead? I have several of the pump version, one in every bugout bag, in every vehicle, and a couple extra at home on the shelf, all bought from WalMart.com, as per…
https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=sawyer%20water%20filter
Thank you for letting us know about the Sawyer water filters, dz. I went on the Walmart site and found that those filters are even available up here in Canada. They seem to be a very robust unit and are rated to be able to filter approx. 100,000 gallons. 100,000 GALLONS! That is one heck of a lot of water! Way better than those life straws. And the unit is very compact. Basically a filter, hose hooked up to a one gallon bag. Stellar idea. Thank you for sharing, dz.
The problem with this mineral is that it’s in Russia, therefore expensive and difficult to access, especially if the supply chain breaks down. Another concern would be contamination from Cherynoble or other chemical or nuclear accidents…surely the Russian government isn’t going to put themselves out to warn westerners of potential side effects.
Can’t you make charcoal out of burnt wood? It’s time consuming as I recall, and requires a certain level of skill to do right, but wood we’ve got…we don’t have to go across the globe to get it.
Perhaps an article on making your own charcoal would be nice. And what makes it “active”.
You’ve sent me on a quest, Miss Kitty. I’ve seen the word “active” all my life and never asked why. Always been in the back of my head on my bucket list. LOL! (Wingsuiting sounds like a good time) Seriously; though, I did a little bit of digging and came across a video on how to make it. Time-consuming. Ever cooked wood? Yummy. Apparently some people use the stuff for detox. I don’t think I want to know. And then of course there’s Wikipedia; the end all and be all of all knowledge in multiverse. I’ll give Jimmy his due. There’s an interesting Wkiki article entitled, “Activated Carbon”. If you have the time take a look at it. Quite wordy and technical. Waaaay to much for here. I’d be typing for who knows how many hours. Have fun, Miss Kitty. I’m gonna be fancy and say “erudite” comes to mind.
There is an old article on here about making charcoal, which was interesting, but I would still like to see an updated one. In that article, it specified beech as the preferred wood… I’m pretty sure other woods were used in Europe, too. Willow sticks in my mind.
I’ve never made activated charcoal but I think hardwoods (oak, hickory, etc.) would be the preferred wood to use instead of softwoods (like evergreens) because hardwoods are denser. I wouldn’t use any tree that produces food to make charcoal, and even if an article said “walnut is the best wood to make charcoal” I would not cut down a producing walnut tree just to make charcoal. Filtering water should not mean you need to sacrifice any food producing trees to make charcoal – you can find other means that will still work. The “sand barrel” method for filtering out most particulates, followed with either boiling or bleach should produce better water than many people will be using.
back to the topic of using of Chlorine or other chemicals to sanitize water…
I used to have a Hot Tub and instead of chlorine I used bromine, which was less harsh to my skin, eyes, and sinuses. And when I was in the Navy the engineers distilled water from sea water for both running the steam driven turbines, and also to “create” potable water by adding trace minerals and bromine. Does anyone know if bromine is an reasonable option for sanitizing potable water on a smaller scale, such as per gallon or my 55 gallon potable water containers?
This is from the VanIsle website. They proclaim themselves as water experts since 1972. You make your own assessment.
“What’s the Difference between Chlorine & Bromine in Hot Tubs
Many people stand on different sides of this age-old dilemma. Chemically, chlorine and bromine are closely related (being next to each other on the periodic table), however; in hot water they react very differently.
Chlorine and bromine are both chemical components that kill bacteria and germs that can grow in your hot tub water which are then collected by your filter.
Chlorine
Pros
Fast & effective way to clean your hot tub without much maintenance
Doesn’t break down fast by sun light
Cons
High in pH, meaning, you’ll have to regulate the water balance constantly
Can cause skin irritation for those with sensitive skin
Potent smell
Bromine
Pros
Kills algae, bacteria and other contaminants more effectively in warm water environments
Lower pH level, meaning, less chemical balance issues
No strong chemical smell
More gentle on sensitive skin types
Cons
More expensive than chlorine
Breaks down fast in sun light
Takes longer to reach residual levels
Difficult to completely wash off your skin after a long soak in the hot tub
In the end…
Both chlorine and bromine will sanitize and keep your hot tub water clean. If you have sensitive skin, bromine is definitely the better choice, but is a little more costly. If you forget to sanitize regularly and want to save a little money, chlorine is the way to go.
NOTE: Never mix chlorine and bromine!! If you want to switch chemicals, it should only be done during a complete water exchange. Don’t forget to flush out the system to remove any remaining sanitizer.”
My uneducated guess would be that because they were using distilled water which would be hot coming into the system, they used bromine because according to this article it stands up to hot water better.
I know when I buy distilled water at the local water store it is warm coming into the bottle. The temperature varies and I guess that depends upon how long it has sat in the holding tank.
I would once again beat the dead horse. Chemical availability after the end of the world is going to be short-lived depending upon how much you have stored away.
Boiling and distilling, while they are, indeed, energy intensive, does not need to use the heat source just for boil/distilling water. One can use it for cooking, dehydrating, or just plain old warmth. It is the simplest method of purifying water. While heavy metals and fluorides and other chemicals are certainly something to be considered, in an end of the world situation, your most immediate concerns are going to be salmonella, typhoid, giardiasis, and all the nasty diseases that go with along with contaminated water.
If you read about medieval time you will be surprised, I think, at the number of people, including people whom you would think would not be eating contaminated food, who died of the “bloody flux” which was medieval-speak for overwhelming diarrhea. Even royalty died of it and many of them had food tasters who tasted everything before royalty indulged.
We worry about the unusual and disregard the commonplace.
We worry about flying yet driving to the airport is far more dangerous. We worry about terrorists and mass shootings yet you are far more statistically likely to be beaten to death or stabbed to death by someone you know.
We worry about nuclear generating plants blowing up and spreading nuclear waste yet getting run down while crossing the street is a more present danger.
We worry about an EMP taking our out grid system but tornados, hurricanes, spring floods are more frequent and disrupt life for those afflicted. In fact, with our rickety system that we have we are more likely, I think, to suffer a massive outage by just system failure and slow human reactive time to the situation.
I suspect that neither is particularly healthy for you, but I do know that chlorine will evaporate out of water over a fairly short time.
In the long run you best solution is either distillation, or a sand barrel filter. The sand barrel does more than just filter the water. It builds up an algae like substance on the top which will actually “eat” many toxins from the water as it is also being filtered.
Given the efficiency of modern rocket stoves I don’t see the energy cost of distillation to be prohibitive.
I used to use rocks to filter the water in my fishpond. I used the settlement process to filter. In other words, I used a double tank system. In the primary tank the water entered at the bottom of the filter because the force of the water from the water pump would force the water through the filter no matter how clogged it became if I was neglectful in regular backwashing.
The outlet from the primary filter was near the top of the primary tank. The inlet for the secondary filter was near the top of that tank, but lower than the primary outlet.
The outlet for the secondary filter was at the bottom of the secondary filter tank.
I used rocks because I thought using sand it might be forced from one tank to the other and back into the pond. The stones would resist such positional shifting.
Large debris was screened at the inlet to the submersible pump in the bottom of the fish pond.
I wasn’t trying for drinking water, I was just removing fish detritus and other material from the pond so that the water was clear and clean enough for the decorative koi we had in the pond. The system efficiently cleaned the water and needed to be back-flushed about four times a year.
I had to flush the system when enough material had moved from the primary filter to the secondary filter to the extent that the water exiting the outflow from the secondary filter had subsided sufficiently that the water started to back up.
No matter how diligent i was in skimming leaves and scooping stuff from the bottom of the pool, eventually the filters would plug up with material they removed from the filter stream. With the level of the filter material in the first tank below the outlet, it gave material in the primary filter time to settle out of the water, so that the water flowing into the secondary tank was pretty clean.
Between backflushings, material would deposit to a depth of one to two inches on top of the filter material in the first tank.
I hope this detailed description is clear to readers. Of course, it is crystal clear to me because I designed and built the system.
Unfortunately it is no longer a fish pond because it wasn’t built to be one from the get-go. It was too shallow to protect the fish from predators who raided it every time we went away for any period of time. They managed to get at the fish even though I made frames with chicken wire on them to cover the pond while we were away. I believe both bobcats and raccoons were responsible. We didn’t have a problem with hawks or pelicans as other koi growers have experienced.
A fish pond to protect from land predators should be at least three feet deep and have vertical sides. Another too soon old, too late smart life lesson.
Always pertinent and informative, LCC.
My only goal in raising fish or anything else except for my dogs and cat is for food. That being said, aquaponics interest me.
Raise fish and vegetables in the same space with one feeding the other in a symbiotic arrangement. It would be an indoor/greenhouse build… so, no predators involved.