chloramine in water

Im trying to do an organic grow, i've been leaving 5L containers of tap water out for 3-4 days to evaporate the chlorine out, but i've just became aware that there is another compound called chloramine in the tap water that takes weeks to evaporate at room temperature.

When i first started this organic grow i was using shop bought water, and i am adding myco madness (soil bacteria/fungi/rhizome etc mix). When i was using shop bought, i had a green hue to the topsoil, which i presumed was the bacteria colonising. Since i switched to tap water and leaving it to evaporate the chlorine, there is no colour to the soil at all, its like its been washed away. This must be the work of the chloramine......and if there is chloramine in the water, then my whole 'organic' set up is worthless coz thres no bacteria to work my nutes.



has anyone else had this problem? I think im gonna just go back to shop bought water. It apparanntly takes 20 mins of boiling to get rid of chloramine LOL thats alot of effort and power. Fuckin water companies, the chloramine shit they put in is really bad for life, its frikin toxic, and the laws with it are way too relaxed http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/chloraminemonochloramine_in_uk_d the HSE HAVE NO ANSWERS TO IT, WTF!!!

just ask your water department to give you an analysis report of the water thats being pumped into your neighborhood. btw whats your starting ppm? i use tap water and i also grow organically. at one point i was using RO filtered water but then the filter needed to be replaced so i decided to give my tap a water a try. What i did notice is my starting ppm is around 40. Ive never asked for an analysis of the water but ever since ive added to my organic grow everythings been good if not better than when i was using RO water. But i do let mines sit in a bucket with a couple of airstones for 10-24 hrs. so my advice to you is ask for an analysis and then go from there. if im not mistaken i think petstores sell products to that helps the chloromine evaporate.... good luck.

I'll give you a crash course on chlorine/chloramine. Firstly the amount that is allowed to be in the water is up to 4.0 mg/l. In most places this level is around 1.9-2.5 mg/l. There are certain times of the year when the water company does disinfection and will increase this level near the limit. Chlorine/chloramines are harmful to microbes and viruses and that is the purpose for their putting it in the water system. If you want to reduce the amount of chlorine in your tap water you need a Carbon filter and a testing device. The bad news is if you want near total removal it would require significant investment. You can get easy to use kits to determine how much is in your water, they are available online from HACH and Stericheck. A simple faucet or pitcher filter could reduce it down to a usable level and inherently the carbon from these filters will remove a large amount of other contaminants. These small filters require replacement and will not produce high volumes but will be more efficient than setting water out for hours/days. Hope this helps, have a nice day.

bestbuds09 said:

just ask your water department to give you an analysis report of the water thats being pumped into your neighborhood. btw whats your starting ppm? i use tap water and i also grow organically. at one point i was using RO filtered water but then the filter needed to be replaced so i decided to give my tap a water a try. What i did notice is my starting ppm is around 40. Ive never asked for an analysis of the water but ever since ive added to my organic grow everythings been good if not better than when i was using RO water. But i do let mines sit in a bucket with a couple of airstones for 10-24 hrs. so my advice to you is ask for an analysis and then go from there. if im not mistaken i think petstores sell products to that helps the chloromine evaporate.... good luck.

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40 PPM incoming is VERY good water. You have no need for RO, consider yourself very lucky to have such good water. Some places have 2000 ppm, I myself have 600-800 ppm incoming.

"Ascorbic acid and sodium ascorbate completely neutralizes both chlorine and chloramines but degrades in a day or two which only make it usable for short-term applications; SFPUC determined that 1000 mg of Vitamin C (tablets purchased in a grocery store, crushed and mixed in with the bath water) remove chloramine completely in a medium size bathtub without significantly depressing pH."

From Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloramine

If youre going to take the extra cost and time to grow organically I strongly recommend getting an RO system or using store bought RO water. I cant speak for your location but I know my tap water has a starting PPM of close to 500 which is insane considering most people want to keep their PPMs under 1000 when vegging.

as everyone above stated ..... There is no getting rid of chloramine. You have two options if you want a living soil environment with tap water.

an R/O filter which can be a bit pricey .......
...or as i was reading today you can use carbon cartridges .... here is the link ... it's fairly cheap.

www.pwgazette.com/gardenhosefilters.htm

this info is courtesy of The Rev of Skunk mag. If you don't know who he is ...i suggest you get to know him if you're trying to grow organically, and have a living soil soil environment. His info on organics is endless..

bestbuds09 said:

just ask your water department to give you an analysis report of the water thats being pumped into your neighborhood. btw whats your starting ppm? i use tap water and i also grow organically. at one point i was using RO filtered water but then the filter needed to be replaced so i decided to give my tap a water a try. What i did notice is my starting ppm is around 40. Ive never asked for an analysis of the water but ever since ive added to my organic grow everythings been good if not better than when i was using RO water. But i do let mines sit in a bucket with a couple of airstones for 10-24 hrs. so my advice to you is ask for an analysis and then go from there. if im not mistaken i think petstores sell products to that helps the chloromine evaporate.... good luck.

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Pet stores do sell products that take cholorimine out of the water, but they too are short lived and also contain salts.... also... You can not bubble chloromine out, nor let it sit out and evaporate. Chloromine was placed in the water supply for that reason, so it stays in the water supply and dosen't dissapate

ataxia said:

as everyone above stated ..... There is no getting rid of chloramine. You have two options if you want a living soil environment with tap water.

an R/O filter which can be a bit pricey .......
...or as i was reading today you can use carbon cartridges .... here is the link ... it's fairly cheap.

www.pwgazette.com/gardenhosefilters.htm

this info is courtesy of The Rev of Skunk mag. If you don't know who he is ...i suggest you get to know him if you're trying to grow organically, and have a living soil soil environment. His info on organics is endless..

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Carbon cartridges are essentially a Brita filter. They will remove chlorine but will not effect your PPM which can be just as bad for your grow.

During flower you want every spare PPM available for more nutrients/additives so I repeat if you have a larger grow shell out the money for an RO system (theyre $150 on Amazon and you can install it yourself). If you have a smaller grow buy distilled/RO water from your local grocery store for 25 cents a gallon it will be a MUCH more worthwhile investment then ALL of your nutrients.

I just wanted to clear up any misconceptions. PPM and Chlorine/Chloramine are very different and in no way related. PPM is a measurement of how many dissolved solids are in the water i.e. sodium, calcium, magnessium, etc. Water chlorine is measured in mg/l. A reverse osmosis system will remove only dissolved solids and some bacteria and none of the chlorine. A carbon water filter will remove chlorine/chloramines and some bacteria but will not significant reduce any mineral content. If you want a system that removes Chlorine, and lowers the TDS (total dissolved solids) you need a carbon filter followed by the RO. And if your investing that much you should precede the RO with a water softener that will remove hard minerals such as calcium and magnesium that will prematurely foul your RO filters.

thanks for all the info everyone, as im doin a small grow, im just gonna invest in shop bought water. I heard brita filters do NOT take chloramine out, because they filter the water too fast for the chloramine to react with the carbon or something. Brita even said that their products are not designed for chloramine. Anyhow, you should read that link i gave, its a freedom of information request that some guy made to the HSE (they are legally bound to reply here, not sure what your laws in USA are), and basically the HSE said that they have no information on the use of chloramine as a water disinfectant, and that they have no records of who supplies it to the water companies etc etc etc, its really fucked up, peace

AegisVeritas said:

I just wanted to clear up any misconceptions. PPM and Chlorine/Chloramine are very different and in no way related. PPM is a measurement of how many dissolved solids are in the water i.e. sodium, calcium, magnessium, etc. Water chlorine is measured in mg/l. A reverse osmosis system will remove only dissolved solids and some bacteria and none of the chlorine. A carbon water filter will remove chlorine/chloramines and some bacteria but will not significant reduce any mineral content. If you want a system that removes Chlorine, and lowers the TDS (total dissolved solids) you need a carbon filter followed by the RO. And if your investing that much you should precede the RO with a water softener that will remove hard minerals such as calcium and magnesium that will prematurely foul your RO filters.

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Dont water softeners work by adding salt to the water which is horrible for your plant?

And you can buy RO systems with a prefilter for chlorine.

ShibaSpeak said:

Carbon cartridges are essentially a Brita filter. They will remove chlorine but will not effect your PPM which can be just as bad for your grow.

During flower you want every spare PPM available for more nutrients/additives so I repeat if you have a larger grow shell out the money for an RO system (theyre $150 on Amazon and you can install it yourself). If you have a smaller grow buy distilled/RO water from your local grocery store for 25 cents a gallon it will be a MUCH more worthwhile investment then ALL of your nutrients.

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the links i supplied are far from a brita filter. And YES .... carbon filters will not get rid of all the chloromine from your water. Keep in mind the info i provided about carbon filters is referring to dual carbon filters .... i think in Rev's grows he runs it through two to three carbon filters and it still keeps a tiny bit of chloromine in the water. What was suggested was a cheaper version of using R/O and carbon together.

Also filtering out any minerals in the tap isn't a problem. products such as cal/mag, several liquid nutes can raise your PPM levels to an optimum state. One other thing about city tap. It's pretty hard with calcium and magnesium. Filtering out some of the magnesium would be ideal in an organic situation due to the fact the high levels of magnesium... and i must add calcium (cannabis uses plenty of both) will throw your ph and living soil mix through a loop, leaving you with a lockout of other nutes which will have you going crazy trying to figure out what the problem is ...

You need a RO/DI system. The Deionization strips the ions from the water. There's no ions in your solution to make any salts that mess with your soils Ph. You can get a 6 stage RO/DI system on eBay for around $120.00
PPM- expresses a very dilute concentrations of substances. Just as per cent means out of a hundred, so parts per million or ppm means out of a million. Usually describes the concentration of something in water or soil. One ppm is equivalent to 1 milligram of something per liter of water (mg/l) or 1 milligram of something per kilogram soil (mg/kg).
your city should have a website. If so there should be a page for the city water with a water analysis.

Why cant you use conditioner they make for aquariums? The stuff from API is something like 5ml per 100g so surely salts wouldnt be an issue at that level. There are plants and microbes that habe to survive in aquariums and millions of people are using tap water.

Why wouldnt that water conditioner be useful?

ShibaSpeak said:

Dont water softeners work by adding salt to the water which is horrible for your plant?

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You are correct water softeners trade hard minerals for sodium ions. However when used as a system the softener removes the hard minerals and the RO removes the sodium. Calcium and magnesium scale up on RO membranes and cause them to channel or foul prematurely. Sodium is very easy for an RO to remove and flush out of the membranes.

Chloramine was used more in the past for water sanitation. Since 1979 the use of it has been regulated by the EPA and most places use chlorine.

Why don't you just buy a Reverse Osmosis filter and make sure you have a activated carbon filter in it? Another way is Campden tablets made from Potassium Metabisulfite home brewers use this to remove Chloramine before they begin the fermentation process.

It's funny how expensive people think RO filters are. You can get a generic one for 100 bucks brand new or a Hydrologic Stealth RO 100 for 170 bucks. You'll make your money back on the first crop because of the enhanced quality and quantity.

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