Some of you guys posted your opinions on Miox purifier so here's mine. I bought a military version (tan instead of red) from TAD Gear on recommendation from ParamedicPete

It works. It gets the job done. I treated water for 4 weeks and had no problems with it (vast range of temps (100 to -10) and alitudes (600m - 6000 m)). I took some liberty as far as the amount of the solution I poured in and I treated every liter of water as it was 2 liters. Still waited the prescribed amount of time and everything was good. As far as the taste goes... I use Tang no mater what water I drink, but without it it was much better than iodine treated water and had almost no taste. Reason I was overtreating the solution is that in theory you will run out of PH strips after 25 Liters if you test the water according to MSR specs. I used 4 one litter bottles system and anytime I was down to 2 bottles I would refil the other two and treat them. Worked out fine for me. I added an extra accessory and it was 1 cc syringe for easier filling of Miox and to prevent spilling of water in the tent or cabin. I think MSR should include a diopler or blunt tip syringe for easier managment that can store in the strap that holds caps in place. They tell you to pour water into the purifier but that is impossible without making a mess and wet sleeping bag is pretty much down there on my list right after wet socks.

It is a really nice device. Not big, durable, waterproof and I treated about 6 liters a day (or 12 if you count my overtreating) and still batteries are strong. I'm glad I bought it and it saved me a ton of money and saved an environment too (not buying water in plastic containers or supporting wood cutting to heat the water). My backup system were chlorine tablets and they were never used.

Treating water right before big push (shot by my girl playing with my fisheye lens).

Thanks for the review! My family & I have a trip out west this summer and I bought a Miox but haven't had a chance to try it out yet. My plan was to bring two 4-litter collapsable bags and then each of the four of us would have 1-liter Nalgene bottles.

Questions:
-Why the tan version instead of the red one?

-Have you by chance tried using the recommended dosage 1 liter dose for 1 liter of water? If so, did you ever find insufficient chlorine with a test strip?

-What was your source of water? Why were you "Mioxing" it?

-With the four 1-liter bottles, did you treat each one with separate doses from the Miox?

-Do you think you'd have been have been better off treating one 4-liter Platypus bag, letting it work for the recommended time, and then pouring that into clean 1-liter bottles? I'm wondering if that would have been easier.

-From what I've read, the 1 cc syringe will exactly fill up the Miox completely, Right? Using the syringe is a great tip!!

-How long did you let the bottles sit before using? My plan is to let it sit for at least 30 minutes and longer if convenient (manual says Cryptosporidium needs 4 hours).

Thanks,

Ken

Thanks for the cool suggestion on the blunt syringe! The unit is waterproof, so if near a body of water, it can be dunked to fill the top, but I agree that it would be better to prime it more precisely if used near things you want to keep dry.

I have the red...personally I won't be hiding from bad guys while treating water, and if I drop mine I want it to stand out, so camo/natural color seems overkill to me, but to each their own.

Your overtreating is a good idea if you don't want to use the test strips.

If using it domestically, ask your parks authority about cryptosporidium, because they should know if it can be found in the area. That will give you peace of mind regarding 30 mins vs 4 hour wait times, but with your 4 bottle system you may have the time anyways.

-Why the tan version instead of the red one?
Thats what store I was buying it from had. No difference except for color.

-Have you by chance tried using the recommended dosage 1 liter dose for 1 liter of water? If so, did you ever find insufficient chlorine with a test strip?
Never did find insufficient amount. BUT it doesn't mean it can't happen. I was going away for 4 weeks and unit comes with 50 test strips (additionals are $15 w/ salt). Manual says you should test water after adding the solution and ten min after. So in my setup that meant 25 liters which was about 5 day supply. Overtreating was there to skip the PH test.

-What was your source of water? Why were you "Mioxing" it?
Streams, water taps, rivers anything that was up from the settlements and didn't look like yak pee.

-With the four 1-liter bottles, did you treat each one with separate doses from the Miox?
Yes. Each 1 liter bottle got 2 litter treatment.

-Do you think you'd have been have been better off treating one 4-liter Platypus bag, letting it work for the recommended time, and then pouring that into clean 1-liter bottles? I'm wondering if that would have been easier.
Great solution but than I'm out of water for 4 hours if I treat everything at the same time. If I treat it as I go than I have water always available. In your solutiuon you can treat 4 liters pour them into the bottles and than refil the bag and treat it. So next time you just distrubute the bag and keep toping it off. Great idea if weight was not an issue.

-From what I've read, the 1 cc syringe will exactly fill up the Miox completely, Right? Using the syringe is a great tip!!
To be anal about it it takes app 1.3 cc. Sometimes a bit more if I just added a fresh salt and they needed to absorb water.

-How long did you let the bottles sit before using? My plan is to let it sit for at least 30 minutes and longer if convenient (manual says Cryptosporidium needs 4 hours).
Most of the time I had 2 liters of treated water and 2 liters of untreated. Few times I was really short on aqua so I drank it after 30 min but that was a rare case. Most of the time my supply of treated water lasted me about 4 hours. But I drank water after 30 min treatment and I'm perfectly fine.

Thanks for the review. Always great to hear comments from real world use. I'm glad that the MSR worked fine for you.

That's a cool fisheye snapshot. One question, though. Do you always wear a headlamp in broad daylight?

Yeah man I was getting water in this shady porter kitchen that was basically a cave dug out in the ground with ruber hose connected from the stream and things that lived there were little scary.

Thanks for the review. I had the red MIOX and had similar experience to yours.

The instruction manual states without using the PH strips, we should overdose by 8 times and wait 30minutes. That means for every 1 litres, you should use 8 litres dosages.

Did you have to filter out the floating particles, either before or after purifing the water.

How much salt did you used up during your trip ? How often do you need to top up the salt ?

I collected 2 bottles (0.5litres) of stream water. Used coffee filter for filtering out the floating particles. Then treated 1st bottle as per normal and wait for 4 hours. 2nd bottle was treated using overdose method which mean using 4 litres doseage for 0.5 litres of raw water and wait for 30 minutes.

The normal doseage treated water, had very little chorline taste in it after waiting 4 hours. Drinking the water treated with overkill method, it tastes like swimming pool water.

Believe using a proper filter eg. activated carbon filter, may further improve the taste.

Taste? I got one word for you: TANG But joking aside I really don't mind the taste since I swim a lot

Well I think I missed that part in the manual about 8 times water overtreatment. I just figured that everytime I did it right for the first few bottles and tested it with Ph strips I got the right color so treating it double the amount would get me the results needed. I didn't filter the floating particles as they were very few.

I didn't use much salt maybe less than half the bag it comes with. I was topping it off every 3 days or so.

Guess using the 1 cc syringe, you are saving a lot on the salt.

What I did was filling the salt chamber with water, closed, shake. Slightly open the salt chamber cap, before removing the salt chamber to expose the cell. The brine solution actually flow down and fill the cell and overflow away. For my method, I find I had to refill the salt after creating 4 doseages.

Will adopt your syringe method and Tang.

The taste is fine with me. But had a hard time, getting my GF, trekking buddies to drink it. Everyone sticked out their tongue after a swig. But all agreed, it is better then using tablets.

A lot of people were getting low salt indicator the way you were doing it. As a matter of fact that's what I got when I didn't read the manual at first since it was kind of straight forward to do it that way.

But yeah man I don't mind the taste either but my girl kept adding some crappy vitamin c pockets so I found a bag of TANG (didnt know they make it in grape, lime, orange and pinaple).

Still the syringe is not much as a salt saver but keep my stuff dry thingy.