Animal Drinking Water Purification
Water Treatment Shouldn't Be a Research Variable.
PurityGard® replaces acidified water and bleach with a continuously dosed, automatic system built around your facility.
PurityGard® is Quip Laboratories' continuous water disinfection program for animal facilities. It's a chlorine dioxide system built and serviced around your facility, in place of acidified water or bleach.
What Is PurityGard®?
PurityGard® doses your water continuously and automatically with Quiptrol® 3000, Quip Laboratories' EPA-registered chlorine dioxide chemistry (EPA Reg. No. 75757-2-46269), holding steady disinfection levels around the clock. Quip Labs works with your team to design the build, then installs, monitors, and services it on an ongoing basis.
Every PurityGard® system is configured around your facility's water quality, power supply, and budget.
- Continuous, automatic dosing
- EPA-registered chlorine dioxide chemistry
- Byproduct-free disinfection
- Removes and helps prevent biofilm throughout the system
- Non-corrosive to stainless steel components
- Preserves normal taste and odor, supporting consistent animal water intake
Two Ways to Install PurityGard®
Every PurityGard® system is tailored to your facility's layout, water quality, and budget. Most installations take one of two forms.
Direct Injection
Venturi dosing meters Quiptrol® 3000 directly into the line as water flows past, running without any power at the injection point. Periodic service visits keep it calibrated.
Bulk Tank System
A fully connected system draws from a bulk tank, with remote monitoring of tank weight, flow, and fill status, plus optional integration into your building management system.
Monitoring, battery backup, and testing add-ons are available on either configuration. Quip Labs will recommend what fits during your facility assessment.
Whether you're treating water with strong acid, bleach, or something else, you may be introducing unwanted variables into your water program. These variables have documented effects on animal health, research consistency, and staff burden.
Effects of Water Treatment on Gut Flora
Acidified water and bleach are both established methods for controlling bacterial contamination in drinking water, and both have documented effects on gut microbiota.
HCl-acidified drinking water altered gut microbiota composition in mice by 6 months of age, with changes detectable at the family and genus level.
Whipple, B., et al. Scientific Reports 11, 2877 (2021).
Chlorinated water altered gut microbiota composition and was associated with increased tumor development in a colorectal cancer mouse model.
Sasada, T., et al. PLOS ONE 10(7), e0132435 (2015).
Effects of Water Quality on Biofilm
Biofilm forms inside water distribution systems regardless of species or facility type, and its presence in rodent watering systems is directly documented in laboratory animal science literature.
Bacterial biofilm developed steadily inside automated mouse watering system manifolds over a 6-month period, with exponential growth between months 3 and 6, and dropped significantly following sanitization.
Meier, T.R., et al. JAALAS 47(2), 63–70 (2008).
An automated reverse-osmosis watering system serving 49 racks of rodent caging was found to have heavy biofilm accumulation due to insufficient sanitization, with bacterial contamination linked to a clinical case in the facility.
Molk, D.M., et al. JAALAS 52(2), 197–205 (2013).
Comparing Two Methods of Biofilm Treatment
Chlorine has a higher oxidation potential than chlorine dioxide, making it reactive with a wider range of organic structures. That lack of selectivity comes at a cost in water treatment applications.
Bleach (Chlorine)
- Widely available and cost-effective
- Donates 2 electrons to oxidation, requiring higher concentrations to be effective
- Limited efficacy against biofilm; the hypochlorous acid / hypochlorite ion equilibrium limits deep penetration
- Forms disinfection byproducts (DBPs), including compounds of concern, when reacting with organic material
- Can cause corrosion in stainless steel crevices even at low concentrations
- Can produce a taste or odor animals may avoid
Chlorine Dioxide
- One of the most powerful oxidizing disinfectants, after ozone
- Donates 5 electrons to oxidation, effective at a fraction of chlorine's concentration
- Penetrates and helps remove biofilm and controls oo-cysts (e.g., giardia, cryptosporidium) more effectively than chlorine
- Does not chlorinate organic compounds; produces far fewer DBPs
- Non-corrosive to stainless steel, even in the presence of chloride
- No taste or odor difference detected versus untreated water in human acceptance testing up to 8 ppm
Sources: Speronello, B., "Acidified Chlorine vs. Acidified Chlorine Dioxide," Quip Laboratories. Noszticzius, Z., et al., "Chlorine Dioxide Is a Size-Selective Antimicrobial Agent," PLOS ONE 8(11), e79157 (2013).
Your Safety Team May Already Agree
Vets and EHS teams may not evaluate the same chemical for the same reasons, but bleach and hydrochloric acid are two places where they tend to arrive at the same answer independently.
Veterinary Teams
Animal health, water intake, and whether the treatment introduces a variable into the research.
Environmental, Health & Safety Teams
Storing and handling hazardous chemistries on site, and the training and PPE burden that comes with it.
What Quiptrol® 3000 Is Registered to Control in Water
The organisms below reflect Quiptrol® 3000's EPA-registered Water Disinfection use category and label-specified contact times and concentrations.
| Organism | Contact Time | Concentration |
|---|---|---|
| Raoultella terrigena [ATCC 33257] (formerly designated as Klebsiella terrigena) | 10 minutes | 1.5 ppm |
| Legionella pneumophilia [ATCC 33152] | 5 minutes | 1.5 ppm |
| Poliovirus 1 [ATCC VR-59] | 5 minutes | 1.5 ppm |
| Rotavirus SA-11 [ATCC VR-2018] | 5 minutes | 1.5 ppm |
EPA registration does not constitute endorsement. Label is the governing document; contact Quip Laboratories for current label information.
Monthly samples for the first quarter, then quarterly. Trained Quip Labs personnel test for the complete microbial profile below when pulling water samples from your PurityGard® system.
| Media | Purpose |
|---|---|
| aPDA Acidified Potato Dextrose Agar | Used for culturing yeasts and fungi, and inhibition of bacteria. |
| R2A Reasoner's 2A Agar | Developed to study bacteria that normally inhabit potable water, including slow-growing species that would otherwise be suppressed by faster-growing species. Used for enumerating heterotrophic organisms in treated potable water. |
| TSA Tryptic Soy Agar | Used for isolating and cultivating microorganisms. |
| BAP Blood Agar Plate | TSA enriched with 5% sheep blood for clinical organisms. It's a differential medium that distinguishes bacterial species by their ability to break down red blood cells. |
| PIA Optional Media for Pseudomonas | Pseudomonas isolation agar inhibits organisms other than Pseudomonas spp. Plated in triplicate, with results averaged across the three plates. |
How a Sample Becomes a Report
A trained Quip Labs Technician pulls water samples in adherence to Quip Labs Water Monitoring SOP mm-1-water.
All samples are shipped with a completed and signed Chain of Custody Record.
Microbial reports are compiled by the Microbiologist and delivered to your facility by your Biosafety Account Manager (BAM).
Calls to review the data and interpret the results can be scheduled with your BAM as needed.
AAALAC-ready documentation, along with add-on validation such as PCR-based Pseudomonas screening, DNA sequencing, MALDI-TOF identification, and heavy metal identification, is available based on your facility's needs and budget. Quip Labs works with facilities of every budget to make sure every research program has access to consistent animal drinking water.
Frequently asked questions about PurityGard®
Answers for vivarium managers and facility teams evaluating an animal drinking water treatment program.
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Service frequency is configured to your facility, typically monthly or quarterly, or on a custom schedule. Water testing generally follows a monthly cadence for the first quarter, then quarterly after that, and can be adjusted based on your program's needs.
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AAALAC-ready documentation is available as part of the water testing program, along with chain-of-custody records and microbial reports compiled by the Microbiologist and delivered to your facility by your Biosafety Account Manager. Like the rest of the system, water testing is configured to your facility's needs and budget, and Quip Labs works with facilities of every budget to make it accessible.
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It depends on the configuration. Direct injection with venturi dosing has a smaller footprint and requires no power at the injection point. A bulk tank system is suited to facilities with existing onsite electrical infrastructure. Quip Labs will walk through the specific footprint and any water service disruption during your facility assessment.
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Battery backup and mobile hotspot connectivity are available as optional components so monitoring continuity holds through a power or connectivity interruption. Not every facility needs these options. Quip Labs will recommend them based on your risk tolerance and existing infrastructure.
Ready to Build Your PurityGard® System?
Tell us about your facility and current water treatment, and our team will follow up with a configuration built around your needs and budget.
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