We tried ours on our creek water... we first strained through a T-shirt, then boiled, then ran through then Berkey. It worked great!
Good to know.
We have a creek that runs through our place that usually has some water.
We lived off grid and spring fed creek water was our only water for about a year. We filtered it with ceramic filters of another brand using the stacked 5 gallon bucket thing. We lived.