Water & Filter tester | Bikepacking, hiking, camping

Water quality and filter tester for bikepacking, backpacking hiking and more by Kactoily. I was sent this one free to test and review.
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00:00 start
01:45 How to calibrate the Kactoily 6-1 water quality tester
02:14 Testing home tap water with the Kactoily water quality tester
02:34 What pollutants the Kctoily tester is identifying
02:58 Testing hill water and river water in Scotland
03:55 Testing the Pure Clear Filter with river and hill water
04:34 Testing the Pure Clear Filter with the worst water I could find
06:47 Testing the worst water with the Kactoily
06:12 Review conclusion - would I use the Kactoily water quality tester

FOLLOW

[alwaysanotheradventure]

Yes it would be great to compare tester results against a lab. If you can provide me with an economic way of doing this a I’d love to hear from you. I'm no expert, but this comment from @MP-Mauro, someone who seems to know a lot about this topic, is extremely helpful.

"Necessarily, a gadget like that must rely on some sort of shortcut and TOC is actually no more than a shortcut for bacteria and viruses; natural running waters can be reach in TOC especially if they are coming from a peat area because they contain many humic and fulvic acids (which are natural organic acids and therefore TOC increasers), but they may be microbiologically safe. Conversely, some 'clear' water may well be low in TOCs but may not be automatically clean from bacteria and viruses. This is because there is no portable device able to measure them directly."

"TOC is probably the most practical proxy for that, but as in all proxy situations you run the risk of confronting both type of errors: judging clean a water that may have microbes and judging contaminated a water that has none (of course the first type of error is more serious).
That said and taken with a grain of salt it could be better than nothing. Probably, just the filter is your best bet."

[PuddledPete]

In my 20s I nievely thought that fast flowing mountain streams were safe to drink from. 

I was skiing in the Gorms and drank from water flowing beneath the snow. Within 24 hours I was very sick and within a week, after a blood test, was diagnosed with hepatitis. It took 12 months before I returned to "normal" health. We never had advanced filters then or digital test instruments but I certainly learned the value of being very cautious about where I drank from and gradually got used to the taste of iodine.

Thanks for posting the video Simon. It shows how good today's filters are and I'm sure many would invest in the test kit if travelling in a risky area.

[fergyful]

I think you've done a good job in promoting the filter rather than the tester! As you indicate, if you're confident with your filter, there's probably little point of the tester for regular use. If you get to keep that one, it'd be interesting to test the filtered water again as the filter gets older. I also wonder how the tester results compare to (hopefully) more accurate lab tests, but I guess you'd also have to follow standard procedures for sample collection for valid comparisons. It's all interesting stuff though but sad that even our upland streams are becoming dodgy.

[dewindoethdwl]

I used to carry a lot of water for a big run across the mountains. For the last five years I’ve just carried two 500ml bottles, some “iodine” tabs, a small filter pump and a half empty Robinson squash-mini. Stream or pond water into the “dirty” bottle, add the tabs, wait five minutes, filter the water across to the “clean” bottle and then add a little flavour. Run on with a bottle of potable water. It’s a bit faffy but weighs a lot less than a day reservoir of water. Full 500ml bottle plus the process kit weighs just under 1kg. No stomach problems and no running out of water, even on a hot day.

[MiBackpacking]

I’m impressed with the quality of that filter and the water quality tester is a must have for hikers and bike packers. Would love to see you put some of the other popular filters to the test to see how they stack up. 🙌🏼

[kuri]

Super! A filter test would be great to see.

[ervinslens]

Spectacular presentation man, absolutely amazing work! Your channel is just amazing!

[marcproudfoot]

Looks like a handy gadget - I remember coming off the South Glen Shiel ridge once and seeing a deer carcass in the burn running down from the bealach we were descending from - pretty gross (melting eyeballs etc) and about 10 mins later met up with a group, one of whom was drinking from the burn without a filter. Makes me gag just thinking about it, and since then, I simply refuse to drink wild water.

[robertmills]

I enjoy the fact that your videos are so useful and inspiring. Further, your methodology is quite sound. Kudos!

[dannyjackson]

Great video great filter love to see how the other filters fair!

[MP-Mauro]

Necessarily, a gadget like that must rely on some sort of shortcut and TOC is actually no more than a shortcut for bacteria and viruses; natural running waters can be reach in TOC especially if they are coming from a peat area because they contain many humic and fulvic acids (which are natural organic acids and therefore TOC increasers), but they may be microbiologically safe. Conversely, some 'clear' water may well be low in TOCs but may not be automatically clean from bacteria and viruses. This is because there is no portable device able to measure them directly.
TOC is probably the most practical proxy for that, but as in all proxy situations you run the risk of confronting both type of errors: judging clean a water that may have microbes and judging contaminated a water that has none (of course the first type of error is more serious).
That said and taken with a grain of salt it could be better than nothing. Probably, just the filter is your best bet.

[markm]

Great video Simon, it would great if you did a follow up video checking the water quality of other filters.

[ruairidhalexander]

My first thought when you tested the flowing burn water was that the peaty water that we have in Scotland could well give a high reading for Total Organic Carbon despite being 'safe' to drink.
But i see someone else has already covered that in another comment.

[HughDWallace]

Fascinating! I've never felt the need to filter water in Scotland (& have never been sick) but I think that has changed after watching this video! I might well get a water quality tester like this one but I would really appreciate you doing a test on all the filters you can get hold of and show how well they work.

I think the best way to use the tester would be directly in the source so that you don't contaminate a water container unnecessarily. Did you wash the tester between your tests? In practice that would be something we would need to do.

[howardjones]

Great content as always! It would be interesting to find a benchmark for the tester against other ones, or even against a lab (very difficult i expect).

[DavidMackenzie]

Really interesting video. It would be great to see a variety of filters tested. Also be interesting to see a lab test of the device as you only have their word for it that it works! (I'm a bit of a cynic 😊)

[seltunkoko]

I noticed 13% of TDS on your tap water. As shown in the manual, Tds did harm us if used long term.
You reviewed the product excellently.
As always❤

[martinashwell]

Really interesting. How often does it need to be calibrated after initial calibration. Is contamination of tester an issue between testing samples. Thanks

[esthertacke]

Brilliant Simon - how did you know that I needed a new filter ( using a Katadyn BeFree at the moment but this looks great ) - Warren

[stevedouglas]

That filter is remarkable! However, I'd have to be pretty certain (or desperate) to drink any water not confirmed as OK.