Probably Stolen: How to Remove Heavy Metal From Water and Chems, and Get Rid of Radioactive Waste

Heavy metal and chemical contaminant are the two things a Water Filter cannot remove

If your water stalls at basewater after a clean filter run, this is almost always why. Radioactive Waste is a different problem: it is an item that clogs your inventory, covered further down.

Water in Probably Stolen is graded by purity. High-quality water starts at 99% and pure water at 99.9%. A Water Filter in a pitcher strips out debris, microplastics, physical contaminant, organic matter, minerals and microbes, but player testing in the Steam guides agrees it leaves two things behind: heavy metal and chemical contaminant. If those two add up to more than 1%, the water stays basewater however many filters you burn.

Water testing strips only give you a purity number. The AquaScan lists every contaminant in the container with its volume, and the chemist’s Composition Spectrometer does the same job. Scan before you spend filters, and scan sellers’ water before you buy it. If you are still setting up a first shop, our guide to making money from 0 covers the basics first.

Four ways to get heavy metal out of water

1. Soften with a tablet, then run the Water Purifier overnight

The Water Purifier is the standard fix. It needs power and works overnight on the container you load into it. The 1.0.0.5 patch cut its base price from 300 to 250 credits, and vendors add their own markup on top. One player guide lists 345 from the retired merchant and 375 from Dr. Jackson.

1. Drop water purification tablets into the container first. They clear microbes and pull chemical contaminant down to roughly 0.7%. One player guide uses one tablet for a 2L bottle and two for a 6L jug.
2. Put the container in a powered Water Purifier and sleep.
3. Leave it until an AquaScan shows the heavy metal dropping. The machine clears the easy contaminants first, then heavy metal, then chemical contaminant.
4. Pour the result through a pitcher with a Water Filter and test it.

In one player’s test, 6L of rustwater softened with two tablets went from 95.50% to 99.00% in three nights, and the heavy metal only fell on the third night, from 0.91 to 0.28. A stock purifier stops at 99.01% since the 1.0.0.12 update, so it makes high-quality water, not pure water. Pure water needs Quality modules adding up to 100% or more.

2. Keep Gutter Tilapia in the tank

Gutter Tilapia come with the Aquaculture upgrade in Wild’s Network. They eat heavy metal and chemical contaminant out of the tank water every night, and dirty water does not hurt them. Bigger fish clean faster, and more fish clean faster. In one player’s test, six adults in a 12L tank of rustwater took heavy metal from 0.92 to 0.50 in three nights, which was enough for high-quality water, then slowed to a stop at 0.24 by night five.

The tank cannot be dragged like a bottle. Double-click it, or right-click and choose Use, then click the container you want to pour into.

3. Plant Hydroreed in a big tank

Hydroreed comes from the Hydroponics upgrade through the Retired Farmer. It removes a share of the contaminants each night instead of a fixed volume: about 27 to 28% in two separate player tests. That share is the same in a small bottle or a 50L tank, so it is the cheapest way to clean a lot of water at once. It does not touch minerals, so finish with a Water Filter. Gene editing the purification trait raises the nightly share.

4. Dilute a near miss

If filtered water sits just under 99%, mix it with water that sits above 99%. Purity averages by volume: 1L at 99.50% plus 1L at 98.50% makes 2L at 99.00%. This does not remove any heavy metal, it spreads it thin enough to pass.

Chemistry reagents: avoid heavy metal, or clean them with fish

Acid, base, Lipobond Agent and reducing agent bottles come with random impurities. Microbes, physical contaminant and minerals filter out. Chemical contaminant drops to about 0.7% if you add a little water and chlorine from a purification tablet. Heavy metal does not come out with any lab tool, and it is what keeps a batch under the 99% needed for Lab Pure.

Do not reach for the water tools here. The Water Purifier turns everything that is not water into water, your acid included. Hydroreed strips everything except water too.

The cheap fix: choose cleaner bottles

Open several chemical supplies, scan each bottle, and keep the ones with the least heavy metal for the batches that matter. Several chemists on the subreddit toss any bottle with more than a trace.

The fish fix

Gutter Tilapia count any liquid toward the room they need, as long as a little water is in the tank. Players pour the reagent into the fish tank with 10 to 15 ml of water and let the fish eat the heavy metal and chemical contaminant overnight.

• Water is not optional. One player poured 2L of base into a tank with no water and lost every fish by morning.
• Keep the water small. Players report the cleaning limit scales with the water in the tank, so 10 ml cleans further than several litres.
• Give them enough liquid. Reported needs are 100 ml for a juvenile, 350 ml for an adolescent, 750 ml for an adult and 1,000 ml for an elder. Under the need they lose health.
• One reagent per tank. Acid and base neutralise each other, so the Steam chemist guide says never to mix them in one tank. We could not confirm that warning a second way.
• Expect a floor. Two players report the fish stop at about 0.02% contamination.

Radioactive Waste goes to the Dumping Grounds, twice

Radioactive Waste is a barrel item. You get it two ways. The Corporate Waste Manager, who can turn up from day 3, pays you 100 credits for every barrel you take off his hands, up to five. The Makeshift Reactor starting perk also produces barrels as the reactor wears down.

Each barrel takes a 3 by 4 block of inventory, it has no value, customers refuse it and it cannot go in a Vending Machine. Dropping a bare barrel in the trash can does nothing: it is still there the next morning.

1. Close the shop and put the barrels in a backpack. A bigger backpack with your tools left at home fits up to four.
2. Leave the store and pick the Dumping Grounds.
3. Move the barrels from the backpack to the ground and head back. Anything left on the ground is gone.
4. Georgio usually brings a barrel back to your shop a day or so later. Take it and dump it again. Players report he only does this once per run.

Each trip is a night out, so you open late the next day and miss a customer. Taking all five barrels is still a quick 500 credits early on if you have the bag space.

Mistakes that waste filters, fish and reagents

• Mistake: Pouring the same water through a Water Filter again and again. Fix: Scan it. If only heavy metal and chemical contaminant are left, a filter will never move it.
• Mistake: Expecting tablets to clear heavy metal. Fix: Tablets handle microbes and part of the chemical contaminant. Heavy metal needs the purifier, fish or reeds.
• Mistake: Putting acid, base or a drug batch in the Water Purifier. Fix: Keep chems out of it. It converts them to water.
• Mistake: Filling a fish tank with reagent and no water. Fix: Add 10 to 15 ml of water first and check the tank for a low liquid warning.
• Mistake: Leaving Radioactive Waste in the trash can. Fix: Take it to the Dumping Grounds, and again after Georgio returns it.

FAQ

Source & credit

Probably Stolen is developed by Questing Goose Studio and published by tinyBuild. Purifier prices and limits come from the official patch notes. The contaminant tests are from the Steam community guides Water Trading Made Easy by Owlie, The Complete Chemist Guide by lpinch and Machinery and You by The Exceptional Fisherman, cross-checked against player reports on r/ProbablyStolen. Numbers from a single player’s test are marked as such. Screenshots are from the official Steam store page. For a harder run, see our hard mode guide.