purify water in tanks

[s/v Jedi]

In the old days people put a silver coin in the milk can and the milk would not spoil 👍

[Ballsnall]

Originally Posted by wefleenor

I made 12 trips to sub-Saharan Africa with students to work on water and sanitation projects. I always used colloidal silver to treat the water I drank with total success. Many students used fancy backpacking filters with limited success. Make sure you use colloidal silver and not silver nitrate of silver chloride. I haven't gone in 4 years, but I used to buy a product called Silverdine.

I would be cautious about ingesting colloidal silver on a regular basis. It's great for topical treatment but there are safely considerations as there are with chlorine which is why I use charcoal filtration. I believe there are filters now available with colloidal silver which should be very safe.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Ballsnall

I would be cautious about ingesting colloidal silver on a regular basis. It's great for topical treatment but there are safely considerations as there are with chlorine which is why I use charcoal filtration. I believe there are filters now available with colloidal silver which should be very safe.

Please provide citations about silver being harmful when ingested. I know that in huge quantities it can be lethal, but the same is true for water.

For water purification quantities I think you die from drinking too much water before the silver turns you blue…

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Please provide citations about silver being harmful when ingested.

Here you go. It's an abstract with a paywalled Elseveir link, unfortunately.


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24231525/


And also this more summary report that is freely available, that reports adverse health effects after ingestion of 6.4g over one year:


https://rais.ornl.gov/tox/profiles/silver_f_V1.html

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Here you go. It's an abstract with a paywalled Elseveir link, unfortunately.


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24231525/


And also this more summary report that is freely available, that reports adverse health effects after ingestion of 6.4g over one year:


https://rais.ornl.gov/tox/profiles/silver_f_V1.html

Yes, when ingested in large doses. But that is not relevant in a discussion about purifying water. If you ingest chlorine, you will be a puddle of liquid long before you turn blue from silver, but nobody questions purifying with chlorine!

Everything is toxic when taken in large quantities.

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Here you go. It's an abstract with a paywalled Elseveir link, unfortunately.


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24231525/


And also this more summary report that is freely available, that reports adverse health effects after ingestion of 6.4g over one year:


https://rais.ornl.gov/tox/profiles/silver_f_V1.html

Some years ago, there were a series of study results published in JAMA describing the chronic effects of exposure to small concentration silver compounds. Moral of the story - this cure can be worse than the problem.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Yes, when ingested in large doses. But that is not relevant in a discussion about purifying water.

6.4g over the course of a year is less than 20 mg a day. 20 mg a day is a tiny amount.

[Rumrace]

Baking soda blaster. Walnut shells, diluted drain cleaner. A volunteer

[NPCampbell]

There are UV lights made for sterilizing water tanks. UV, at the right intensity levels, pretty much kills all pathogens except for prions.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Jammer

6.4g over the course of a year is less than 20 mg a day. 20 mg a day is a tiny amount.

So how much do you think must be added to a tank of water to purify it?

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

So how much do you think must be added to a tank of water to purify it?

Beats me, I use chlorine. Ask someone who thinks it's a good idea.

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

So how much do you think must be added to a tank of water to purify it?

How ‘impure’ is the water in the tank (rhetorical question)
What contaminants are present in the untreated water?
How much water is in the tank?
How much do people on your boat drink every day?
How long to they drink it?

See where this is going?

The research is sparse but worth reading and it certainly beats debating toxicology and pharmacology with a bunch of liberal arts majors.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Beats me, I use chlorine. Ask someone who thinks it's a good idea.

You know how much chlorine intake will kill you?

For silver, safe standard is 0.1 mg/L. You will never experience that because almost everything is caught in the filter and stays there, killing bacteria that ends up in the filter.

Institutions like hospitals and NASA use silver and you may as well, because top rated filters all have silver in addition to carbon.

Ignore the colloidal silver homeopathic fans… they consume it on purpose and that is how they end up with blue skin… for water purification colloidal silver isn’t used. A silver dollar in the tank followed up by a good filter that has silver added is all it takes and I think it’ll be hard to detect in the water at all

[s/v Jedi]

Let me answer that question myself: a lethal dose of chlorine is 200ml of a 3% solution. 3% of 200ml is about 6mg, so 6mg of chlorine will kill a person.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

For silver, safe standard is 0.1 mg/L. You will never experience that because almost everything is caught in the filter and stays there, killing bacteria that ends up in the filter.

I thought we were trying to answer the OP's question about adding things to a tankful of water to make the tankful of water safe to drink. There were some suggestions at the top of the thread about filtration that the OP found unworkable.