Thanks for looking into my situation in Tempe. I feel a lot better about my drip system now. I hate the thought of filtering tap water for a fish tank. I feel even more comfortable now after your research.Egon from what I could read on the water quality of Tempe https://www.tempe.gov/government/public-works/water/water-quality/faq-water the chlorine residual (not chloramine) leaving the treatment facility, is 1 ppm. Over distance and time, that chlorine is going to lose some of its strength, and if one is far enough from the facility, at your faucets, the disinfectant residual could be next to nothing. On a slow drip, into a large enough system, with lots of organic material to react with, typically a non issue.
The only caveat I would add to that, is that during an event such as a period of high precipitation, and/or a water main break, which is usually followed by a flush of the system, there could be much higher residuals of chlorine, or possibly even chloramine being added to the system.
Best to get a test kit, and monitor chlorine, and/or chloramine residuals coming out of your faucets.
Chloramine in source water with Auto Drip System?
- Thread starter wednesday13
- Start date
I don't know squat about treating chlorinated or chloraminated water; this thread is making me even more thankful than I already was that I am on my own well. Please pardon the naive questions; I'm just trying to make sense of it.
So...is the ammonia in the chloramine accessible to nitrifying bacteria? If yes, then the ammonia being dripped into a system would be analogous to that produced by a larger bioload, wouldn't it? How does the added ammonia in chloraminated water dripping in compare to the added ammonia introduced by adding a couple big fish to the system? We don't measure any ammonia in healthy cycled tanks because it is used up as fast by the bacteria as it's produced by the fish. So if you are continuously dripping ammonia into the system, how is that different than adding more fish that would be continuously producing it? I'm not sure why one would expect to read ammonia in the tank, as long as the filter can handle that "artificial bioload"...which virtually all of them can, when we're just discussing bioloads.
Wouldn't the more troublesome aspect of chloramine be the chlorine component, which won't quickly dissipate the way chlorine alone would? My initial thought was that a "bio-pre-filter" could be set up that would utilize the ammonia in the tap water, converting it before the new water ever enters the tank...but then you still need to remove the chlorine which will interfere with such a filter.
Add in the numerous comments regarding how variable the dosing done by the municipal water supply can be and it really becomes worrisome. Way back when I was on municipal water, I recall how much variation was detectable day to day simply by smelling the water for chlorine; it sounds like this new chloramine bugaboo is just as inconsistent today as simple chlorine was 50 years ago.
Prime claims that it removes/detoxifies both components of chloramine. I seem to recall reading here on MFK that Prime is safe even when overdosed by a huge margin. Wouldn't the obvious and indeed only safe solution be to use an automatic dosing system to add a level of Prime sufficient to deal with even the highest expected levels of chloramine? Or would Prime become a problem in its own right if the fish are exposed to it continuously instead of just once a week or so during water changes?
I'm following closely to see how
Egon
and
wednesday13
and others deal with this.
So...is the ammonia in the chloramine accessible to nitrifying bacteria? If yes, then the ammonia being dripped into a system would be analogous to that produced by a larger bioload, wouldn't it? How does the added ammonia in chloraminated water dripping in compare to the added ammonia introduced by adding a couple big fish to the system? We don't measure any ammonia in healthy cycled tanks because it is used up as fast by the bacteria as it's produced by the fish. So if you are continuously dripping ammonia into the system, how is that different than adding more fish that would be continuously producing it? I'm not sure why one would expect to read ammonia in the tank, as long as the filter can handle that "artificial bioload"...which virtually all of them can, when we're just discussing bioloads.
Wouldn't the more troublesome aspect of chloramine be the chlorine component, which won't quickly dissipate the way chlorine alone would? My initial thought was that a "bio-pre-filter" could be set up that would utilize the ammonia in the tap water, converting it before the new water ever enters the tank...but then you still need to remove the chlorine which will interfere with such a filter.
Add in the numerous comments regarding how variable the dosing done by the municipal water supply can be and it really becomes worrisome. Way back when I was on municipal water, I recall how much variation was detectable day to day simply by smelling the water for chlorine; it sounds like this new chloramine bugaboo is just as inconsistent today as simple chlorine was 50 years ago.
Prime claims that it removes/detoxifies both components of chloramine. I seem to recall reading here on MFK that Prime is safe even when overdosed by a huge margin. Wouldn't the obvious and indeed only safe solution be to use an automatic dosing system to add a level of Prime sufficient to deal with even the highest expected levels of chloramine? Or would Prime become a problem in its own right if the fish are exposed to it continuously instead of just once a week or so during water changes?
I'm following closely to see how
Egon
and
wednesday13
and others deal with this.I’m not changing my drip system. I have 20+ years using an unfiltered tap water drip system. 16 years in my current location. I have about 2000 gallons of water total in my two tanks and one massive sump. I drip 3 to 5 gallons of water per hour into this system. Check out my 1100 gallon build to see the whole set up. I don’t want to hijack this thread.I'm following closely to see how
I believe having a constant drip system is the single best filtration method, we as fish keepers, can do to filter our tanks. This combined with some kind of mechanical filtration to take the bigger particles (poo) out of the water is all that’s needed.
A couple buddies of mine used to use medical dosing equipment, and prime, as their drip rates were rather large. Big expensive adult Asian aros and black rays. Once when my one friend was out of town working he had a massive die off, lost some nice adult fish. He phoned me to help his wife clean up the aftermath. Turned out his dosing equipment failed, and the tank got a massive overdose of Prime. Not good. Lost a ray, and some rather large clown loaches. 02 depletion I believe. Seachem states not to overdose. It’s not a problem, until it is.
John - to answer your question about Prime, and nitrifying bacteria. Yes,they can utilize the ammonia, once the chlorine/ammonia bond is broken. Prime converts the free ammonia in chloramine into a fish safe form,that is then taken up by the nitrifying bacteria. Many years back I used to use massive 90% water changes on a daily basis to prep my tanks for new shipments of adult fish. With a mature filter or two running on a tank, I could go from a few adult fish to a few dozen like nothing happened. I primed the tanks, with fresh chloramine treated water, and Prime or Safe. It was a slick and safe way to build up the bio load, without using fish.
John - to answer your question about Prime, and nitrifying bacteria. Yes,they can utilize the ammonia, once the chlorine/ammonia bond is broken. Prime converts the free ammonia in chloramine into a fish safe form,that is then taken up by the nitrifying bacteria. Many years back I used to use massive 90% water changes on a daily basis to prep my tanks for new shipments of adult fish. With a mature filter or two running on a tank, I could go from a few adult fish to a few dozen like nothing happened. I primed the tanks, with fresh chloramine treated water, and Prime or Safe. It was a slick and safe way to build up the bio load, without using fish.
FYI…… our city switched to chloramine approx 25-30 yrs ago. Very stable, consistent 2 ppm year round. Never had any issues. Prior to that, chlorine would get big spikes every spring during spring run off. Water would look like monkey piss, and smell like a swimming pool after getting shocked. Brutal, could not drink it for 6-8 weeks. Thankfully those days are long gone.
I don't know squat about treating chlorinated or chloraminated water; this thread is making me even more thankful than I already was that I am on my own well. Please pardon the naive questions; I'm just trying to make sense of it.
So...is the ammonia in the chloramine accessible to nitrifying bacteria? If yes, then the ammonia being dripped into a system would be analogous to that produced by a larger bioload, wouldn't it? How does the added ammonia in chloraminated water dripping in compare to the added ammonia introduced by adding a couple big fish to the system? We don't measure any ammonia in healthy cycled tanks because it is used up as fast by the bacteria as it's produced by the fish. So if you are continuously dripping ammonia into the system, how is that different than adding more fish that would be continuously producing it? I'm not sure why one would expect to read ammonia in the tank, as long as the filter can handle that "artificial bioload"...which virtually all of them can, when we're just discussing bioloads.
Wouldn't the more troublesome aspect of chloramine be the chlorine component, which won't quickly dissipate the way chlorine alone would? My initial thought was that a "bio-pre-filter" could be set up that would utilize the ammonia in the tap water, converting it before the new water ever enters the tank...but then you still need to remove the chlorine which will interfere with such a filter.
Add in the numerous comments regarding how variable the dosing done by the municipal water supply can be and it really becomes worrisome. Way back when I was on municipal water, I recall how much variation was detectable day to day simply by smelling the water for chlorine; it sounds like this new chloramine bugaboo is just as inconsistent today as simple chlorine was 50 years ago.
Prime claims that it removes/detoxifies both components of chloramine. I seem to recall reading here on MFK that Prime is safe even when overdosed by a huge margin. Wouldn't the obvious and indeed only safe solution be to use an automatic dosing system to add a level of Prime sufficient to deal with even the highest expected levels of chloramine? Or would Prime become a problem in its own right if the fish are exposed to it continuously instead of just once a week or so during water changes?
I'm following closely to see how
Yes, the ammonia in the chloramine is accessible to nitrifying bacteria however because both the chlorine and ammonia are chemically bonded the bacteria will also "ingest" chlorine ion causing it to die. Even if we assume the chlorine ion is separated from the ammonia ion during nitrification this will result in free chlorine in your system which will still lead to cellular death when the free chlorine touches a cell wall.
What you will need to use is a neutralizing agent (e.g. sodium thiosulfate [or sodium sulfite and sodium metabisulfite], vitamin C (ascorbic acid), or hydrogen peroxide) to ensure the chlorine is turned into a harmless (relatively speaking) byproduct. IMO, sodium thiosulfate produces the least amount of issues & is the most readily available out of all the example options I listed however it leaves behind free ammonia in your system and literally produces table salt (sodium chloride) after neutralizing the chlorine. This is both a boon and bust as the amount of chlorine/chloramine that gets dechlorinated is typically not enough to turn your freshwater system into a saltwater/brackish system. As a result the fish get a little extra salt which they can use in osmoregulation. However, this also means that your system will forever have salt in it which will require large water changes to remove eventually if we assume you never perform any scheduled water changes.
However, if you use Seachem Prime that specific issue won't exist due to their unique blend (both liquid or dry) but your wallet will definitely feel the burdern haha. More specifically they use some proprietery blended hydrosulfite salts to break & neutralize the chlorine bonds and included in that blend is a proprietery binder that does bind to the free ammonia but technically it is only a claim with a strong debate behind it. The claim is that the binder turns all the free ammonia (NH3) into ammonium ions (NH4+) which is significantly less toxic due to the positve charge it has (this + charge makes it harder to bind/pass through a cell's membrane = less likely chance of ammonia burns on the fishes' gills.) Of course since nitrifying bacteria only care about consuming the nitrogen in either form this theoretically results in no chance of ammonia problems in an established aquarium.
Thus, on paper Seachem Prime is a great choice if you want an all in one solution but YMMV depending on how much water you need to treat. IMO since I used to run hundreds of gallons separately with an aggressive water change schedule I stuck with sodium thiosulfate in the end because of the price. Prior to that I used seachem prime (both liquid and dry) with no issues.
edit: I forgot to mention, comparatively speaking, with Seachem Prime it is possible to accidentally overdose whereas it's extremely difficult to overdose on sodium thiosulfate. Some of the other neutralizing agents I listed can be overdosed very easily causing significant problems as well but overall it's pretty idiot proof overall if you measure right. The side-effects just make sodium thiosulfate IMO the best choice out of everything I listed outside of Prime. The largest issue with overdosing with both Prime and sodium thiosulfate will be both chemicals reacting with the dissolved oxygen when their concentration is high enough without an appropriate amount of chlorine to bind to. Of course as mentioned in the first sentence this is nearly impossible to accidently achieve with sodium thiosulfate but it likely with Prime; especially with smaller tanks.
HTH
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@ 2 ppm chloramine (my tap water value year round) I can treat a total of 526,400 gallons ....... with a single 4KG container of Seachem Safe.
With massive water changes, tap water with higher PH values ( mine varies from pH 7.8-8.2) no plants for ammonia uptake, and adding directly to the main tank, Seachem Safe is the safer more logical choice over sodium thiosulfate, even though the cost is far greater.
With massive water changes, tap water with higher PH values ( mine varies from pH 7.8-8.2) no plants for ammonia uptake, and adding directly to the main tank, Seachem Safe is the safer more logical choice over sodium thiosulfate, even though the cost is far greater.
