Can I filter out chlorine?
- Thread starter johnnymax
- Start date
D
drunkenmunky
For slow flow like a continous drip, you don't need catalytic carbon to remove chloramine and your biological filters will remove any ammonia effortlessly.
Carbon fails very slowly, you will have many weeks/months to notice. There are multiple solutions to counter this. Some suggestions below but there are others:
1) Put a tank of canary (test) fish upstream which gets a very high percentage changed water daily. Some fish species are more sensitive to chlorine than others. Bala sharks for example.
2) Do a monthly test for chlorine. I use Palin test (swim pool tablets - DPD 1). Which are about 15 cents each. You don't need the test kit, just the reagent (tablet) as you don't care what the level of chlorine is, any chlorine at all is bad. It goes pink if positive and very pink if strongly positive.
3) Use 2 carbon filters inline but refill in staggered rotation.
In my case, my carbon filters would need replacement every 3 to 4 years with about 6 months of slow failure first. I used to test monthly for years so I'm familiar with my municipal water. What I do now is recharge my carbon filters every even birthday. Carbon is cheap but I like to pack my own cartridges so I know what grade and quantity goes in.
Send me a private message if you want more details.
For slow flow like a continous drip, you don't need catalytic carbon to remove chloramine and your biological filters will remove any ammonia effortlessly.
Carbon fails very slowly, you will have many weeks/months to notice. There are multiple solutions to counter this. Some suggestions below but there are others:
1) Put a tank of canary (test) fish upstream which gets a very high percentage changed water daily. Some fish species are more sensitive to chlorine than others. Bala sharks for example.
2) Do a monthly test for chlorine. I use Palin test (swim pool tablets - DPD 1). Which are about 15 cents each. You don't need the test kit, just the reagent (tablet) as you don't care what the level of chlorine is, any chlorine at all is bad. It goes pink if positive and very pink if strongly positive.
3) Use 2 carbon filters inline but refill in staggered rotation.
In my case, my carbon filters would need replacement every 3 to 4 years with about 6 months of slow failure first. I used to test monthly for years so I'm familiar with my municipal water. What I do now is recharge my carbon filters every even birthday. Carbon is cheap but I like to pack my own cartridges so I know what grade and quantity goes in.
Send me a private message if you want more details.
Very interesting. Per your info I picked up some of the swim pool tablets. Thank you. Would you mind sharing what carbon you use and the refillable cartridge? I'm currently using a 3 stage drip in my sump with 1 sediment filter and 2 of the Pentek chlor-plus10 canister filters in line. Although it seems to work great, those cartridges are pretty expensive if I can drip with straight carbon in the 2 final stages that seems like it would be a welcome cost savings. Thanks!
I'm not familiar with that filter brand but most have a refillable cartridge option. For a standard 10 inch housing something like this:
You can do a "fizz test" on whichever carbon you use. When you place in a bucket of water, the longer you hear and see bubbles & fizz, the more voids it has. Carbon uses surface area (adsorption). It's also easy to increase carbon capacity or recharge old carbon by heating or making your own in a high temperature wood fire like a fireplace, pot belly stove or bonfire.
But bags of high grade carbon is relatively cheap, even medical grade carbon.
A 5 micron prefilter is a good idea to reduce clogging and extend the time between carbon refills. Mostly for convenience, not cost.
You can do a "fizz test" on whichever carbon you use. When you place in a bucket of water, the longer you hear and see bubbles & fizz, the more voids it has. Carbon uses surface area (adsorption). It's also easy to increase carbon capacity or recharge old carbon by heating or making your own in a high temperature wood fire like a fireplace, pot belly stove or bonfire.
But bags of high grade carbon is relatively cheap, even medical grade carbon.
A 5 micron prefilter is a good idea to reduce clogging and extend the time between carbon refills. Mostly for convenience, not cost.
Yes u can use a cartridge like that found on amazon. It is true that a fully cycled tank can definitely handle the ammonia brought in chloramines but I am just extra paranoid. During the summer my city decided to upgrade a pump station and do a major flush of the entire system and during a 3 week period ending up dosing 10 to 15x their normal chloramine levels. Not knowing I lost a bunch of fish on my tanks where I do 50 percent water change twice a week. My drip systems were still fine . This loss had me research catalytic carbon and I been trying out since. I bought the bulk bag on amazon..I think it was like 170 bucks.....I know it's alot but I'm running about 1500 gallons so I know I'm gonna use it. Paranoia sometimes don't go away unless you know you have tried everything. If you read the instructions on prime or safe...you will see they recommend dosing extra for high chloramine levels so I would suggest it is always a safe practice to dose extra during water changes as I know alot of us are not constantly checking our local water parameters on the regular
Yes, continous drip is a great safeguard against erratic water supply.
Catalytic carbon is a marketing description for improved voids - surface area. This is better than activated carbon which is better than carbon but even low grade carbon will work.
Apart from increasing the quality of carbon (and cost), other options are to reduce the flow rate or increase the volume of carbon - both will lengthen the dwell time and improve efficiency of chlorine & chloramine removal. You can increase the volume with a bigger filter or simply add more filters. The best solution will depend on your own priorities.
I reduce the water pressure before carbon filters so it's very easy to make my own carbon filters. Wide diameter PVC pipe and screw cap ends would suffice. Or plenty of discarded swim pool filter housings, household water softeners can be re-purposed etc.
Catalytic carbon is a marketing description for improved voids - surface area. This is better than activated carbon which is better than carbon but even low grade carbon will work.
Apart from increasing the quality of carbon (and cost), other options are to reduce the flow rate or increase the volume of carbon - both will lengthen the dwell time and improve efficiency of chlorine & chloramine removal. You can increase the volume with a bigger filter or simply add more filters. The best solution will depend on your own priorities.
I reduce the water pressure before carbon filters so it's very easy to make my own carbon filters. Wide diameter PVC pipe and screw cap ends would suffice. Or plenty of discarded swim pool filter housings, household water softeners can be re-purposed etc.
