- Filters 4 liters of water in less than 2.5 minutes with no pumping
- 2 4 liter reservoirs in cluded – 1 for dirty water and 1 for clean
- Hollow Fiber filter cartridge filters down to .2 micron
- Taste free reservoirs and hoses
- Never pump water again
Product Description
Using revolutionary Hollow Fiber technology and a little physics, the CleanStream microfilter system treats 4L of water in less than 2.5 minutes—all without a single pump stroke. Need a lot of water? Just refill the Dirty side – even before the Clean side is empty and you’ll be automatically refilling as you go. A quick-disconnect fitting allows for easy removal and filling of the Dirty reservoir and back flushing for optimal performance is as easy as changing the height of the reservoirs. No moving parts, no assembly, near-zero effort. It’s lightweight enough for two, and efficient enough for a whole group. Really—it is that good.
Platypus Clean Stream Gravity Filter
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I really think hand pump filters are on the way out. This gravity filter is amazing. We’ve been using a hand pump for years, and I had no complaints until I saw how well this new type of filter works. It filters water faster than I ever could by hand, and once the bag is filled, the work is done. You literally just hang both bags up, one above the other, and gravity does the rest of the work in minutes. It’s also lighter than most pump filters, and takes up less space. Once the bags are empty, the whole thing can be rolled up and placed into a pretty small bag that fits almost anywhere or hangs on your pack. On our first trip out with it, it saved us in a pinch. We were struggling to find easy access to the river, but with this setup, I just disonnected the filler bag, tied it to some camp line, and dropped it from a cliff into the water. With a little effort, I filled the bag almost to the top and pulled it back up. On the trek back to base camp, I hung one bag from the top of my pack and the other from the bottom, so I had clean water by the time we got back. Try doing that with a hand pump filter!
The bags are also very handy for carrying water. When water’s far from camp, you can filter dirty water into the clean bag, and then fill the dirty water bag back up to be filtered at your campsite later, and the tubes and shutoff clamp make it very easy to hang the clean water bag and use it as a water source, as a camp sink, or even as a “camelback” reservoir. It’s not cheap (by my meager standards), but for the money, you’re basically getting a great filter system, 2 water bags with handles, a camp sink, and a spare drinking reservoir and tube It’s a good value, I think.
Just one note of caution: Platypus recommends leaving the system assembled on trips to avoid contamination of the clean water tubes and reservoir tubes. I obviously broke this rule, which I think is ok with some caution, but be careful.
All in all, Great product! If you can afford it, buy one for your next serious camping/hiking/canoe trip. If not, use a hand pump. I have for years, and it hasn’t made me enjoy the outdoors any less. Clean water is the most important thing.
Rating: 5 / 5
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Alas, the Ziploc design is not built to be water tight – would have dual-track zippers if it was. This is because the Platypus is designed to be primarily used around the camp site (as per customer support). This seems alright for the “Dirty” bladder but seems just a bad design choice for the “Clean” Bladder. Backpacking reviewers always talk of either leaving the “Clean” bladder home (filtering into “real” bladders) or complain of how hard the bladder is to close. When mine first arrived, I was wholly unable to close it. I applied some Vaseline (as per customer support), but I had to attempt to seal and unseal many times before it would finally close without leaking. Cold weather affects both plastic and hands to make it yet again very hard to close (folding in half will help start closing in the middle). So, in cold weather, I leave the “Clean” bladder at home (what a waste). A 4-liter bag is hard to come by (which I need to use in the desert), so I bring two 2-liter bags (which I don’t like doing since one bladder full and one empty unbalances my backpack). Wish they included a 4-liter Water Tank – In Your Choice of Sizes with a slide lock (or simply no “Clean” bladder so I could buy separately).
In comparison, the cheaper MSR HyperFlow Gravity Kit (which is faster and includes a pre-filter) has only one bag (for dirty water) specifically for one to buy a separate “real” backpacking bladder. The more expensive Sawyer® Complete 4L Water Purifier System (slower but additionally cleans out viruses) comes with two 4-liter bags but their no-leak design makes it far more useful for backpacking. Finally, I could have just gotten the Platypus Clean Stream Replacement Filter with two “real” bladders (hand writing “Clean” and “Dirty” on them). I’ll be keeping mine (due to the hassle of returning), but I wouldn’t recommend this to others. I like the large mouth for scooping water – but, I don’t like a back pack full of water (or being without water to drink).
I’ve found the Platypus filter to be quick and efficient (with regularly backwashing to remove air bubbles and gunk). Since the Platypus won’t filter viruses (or small bacteria), I add a bit of iodine (which I normally let work overnight and then add an acidic sports powder in the morning to dectivate and cover the minor iodine flavor) as per the advice of Homeland Safety. I also bought the Platypus Big Zip SL Drink Tube Kit (doesn’t come with a drink tube since, again, it’s designed for just the camp site), an extra Platypus Lapel Clip (the tube kit comes with one), and a Platypus Cleaning Kit. The CleanStream is also handy for travel or as part of a home emergency kit.
Rating: 4 / 5
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It’s sort of ironic that it’s taken this long for the idea of a gravity-fed filter to take hold. I mean, it’s the most stripped-down approach possible to water filtration, and yet, all the products on the market until recently used man-powered pumps to filter the water. I guess if you are trying to pull water from an extremely meager source, a hand pump will still serve you well, but if you are simply pulling water out of a stream or lake, the Platypus CleanStream is so slick, easy and handy that it really proves the old adage “less is more.”
The bags are a high-quality, durable plastic and the unit itself is easy to assemble. Using it is a simple matter of filling the dirty reservoir, hanging it higher than the clean water, and letting gravity do the work. The filtered water tastes great. I drank tons of lakewater on my last hiking trip using this filter and had no negative feedback from my body whatsoever.
I do not go hiking all that often; in fact, it was my buddy who brought this little guy along. But my experience with it has prompted me to buy one, not just for hiking, but for emergency water filtration. This thing would be worth its weight in gold in a natural disaster where clean water is in short supply.
Rating: 5 / 5
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Anyone who has used pump-type filters knows the effort required to produce even modest quantities of filtered water. The Platypus gravity-fed unit puts an end to this in elegant fashion! You can effortlessly filter 4 liters of contaminated water in just a couple of minutes.
I recently used this unit on a 9-day backpacking trip with my son’s Scout Troop. It worked extremely well – so well the boys were begging to use it instead of the Troop pump filters. An added bonus is that it is lighter than the pump-style units. I highly recommend the product, and truly believe this is the next generation of filter
To use it, you simply hang the “Dirty” bag, and let the water filter into the “Clean” bag on the ground or other lower location. There are a couple of down-sides, but they all have solutions:
* Filling the “Dirty” reservoir isn’t easy from standing water, such as a lake. You either need to use a butterfly-net approach, or (as we did) use a plastic container as a scoop.
* When air gets into the inline filter, flow rate goes way down (it reduces the effective surface area of the filter). To solve this issue, simply close the clean-side valve and shake the filter to let the bubbles rise. Once the filter is air free, you may need to pull the dirty-side feed from the filter and squirt the air out of the feed line. All this may sound complected, but it’s not bad.
* You will need to back-flow the unit regularly. We got in the habit of reversing the bags after the filter process was done, and letting a quarter-cup of clean water to run back through the filter onto the ground. Since the unit filters so quickly and easily, you don’t feel bad about wasting a little water.
* You will want to set up a filter station for the unit. You can filter on the go, but if you will be in one place for a while you will want to set a hanger up for the unit. We used a strap and clip to hang the dirty bag while filtering, and clean bag when dispensing.
All said, a great unit that was worth its (very light) weight in gold!
Rating: 5 / 5
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