Austin Water

[jestep]

Does anyone know if Austin water uses chloramine or chlorine treatment. I found an article from about 5 years ago stating Austin was moving to chloramine treatment. I haven't been able to confirm that despite several emails to the city. The amount of detectable ammonia in the water makes me believe that it is chloramines as well.

Also, for those with RODI systems, do you use a larger carbon filter or just the standard size that most come with?

[+mcallahan]

I called Austin Utilities to try to find out the same thing and they never called me back.

I called Buckeye Field Supply to get their opinion and they said that if you are inside a city utility, usually chloramines aren't a problem.

Standard size filters are fine. Just make sure you match up your filter pore sizes and you really only need 1 carbon block

[Robb in Austin]

From research I did 3 years ago, the city uses chloramine. I chose not to go with one of the chloramine prefilters on my BFS Premium 75GPD RODI filter and have not noticed any ill effects.

[caferacermike]

I was told Chloramine when I spoke to them. This was because it is so much more stable than chlorine. Most municipalities have made the switch. Chloramine does not gas off overnight like chlorine.

On that note when I made water changes on my 125g freshwater tank, it came straight from the hose and no chemicals were added to defeat the chlorine/chloramine. I made RO/DI for the salt tanks from the tap water and did not buy a special chloramine filter.

[Meteorflower]

Second on the chloramine, it has always been my understanding that they do use it.

[Timfish]

I've always assumed there are chloramines since my RO test approx. 1 ppm ammonia

[+Hydro]

Susan thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure that using chloramine water in your tank will bother at least the sps. The first I heard about this is when was from the guys at AAF, they are based in Taylor and their water is treated with chloramine. I would have to ask them more about it but from what I understand it is having some effect on their sps corals.

I paid to much for a water well at my house in Elgin, I don't feel so bad about that now.

[+Hydro]

Will carbon absorb it?

[DaJMasta]

Yes, sort of. They sell specialized chloramine RO filters, but they are at least based on activated carbon. I believe the carbon breaks down chloramine successfully, but the resultant compounds need to be further broken down, so most RO systems that advertise that they will remove chloramines have two carbon stages.

Don't buy into the chloramine conspiracy theories.... or the flouride ones for that matter since we're talking about city water.... but that link is a good one for general water information. It's required to stay updated and be checked regularly.

[+Hydro]

Yes, sort of. They sell specialized chloramine RO filters, but they are at least based on activated carbon. I believe the carbon breaks down chloramine successfully, but the resultant compounds need to be further broken down, so most RO systems that advertise that they will remove chloramines have two carbon stages.

Don't buy into the chloramine conspiracy theories.... or the flouride ones for that matter since we're talking about city water.... but that link is a good one for general water information. It's required to stay updated and be checked regularly.

With our water well we us UV light instead of chlorine to treat the water. Now that most of the water that I drink isn't chlorinated I get a strong smell of chlorine whenever I drink city water. Its really hard for me to drink it, knowing there is enough bleach in it that I can smell it. Cholramine sounds worse to me because it won't evaporate out of the water and it isn't eaisly filtered. How does it get out of the waste water before it is reintroduced in to our streams and lakes?

[DaJMasta]

This article (first on googling chloramine breakdown) actually seems to cover the topic pretty well:

http://www.wqa.org/p...-Chloramine.pdf

It seems like they probably don't do anything to treat the water before releasing it, but it doesn't mention chemical means, so it's hard to say exactly. Perhaps one of the normal treatment chemicals for waste water addresses it in part, since it does say that chloramines pose a problem to fish. That said, I'm sure there's plenty of freshwater tanks using chloraminated city water to varying degrees of success.

It also mentions that removing chloramines can improve water taste (though smelling like bleach isn't something I've heard of)... I don't notice it myself, but my guess is that your well water is different enough from city water that its sort of amplifying the effect. Well water may not be treated with chloramine, but it's typically quite a bit harder and can have other chemicals unlikely to be found in city water supplies - so it would be natural that it would taste different. UV light is good at disinfecting, but will not work in a large system because of the time the water spends within a municipal water supply, since there's nothing in the water to prevent the growth, the inevitable bacteria that survives the UV treatment would be free to multiple unchecked after the initial sterilization.

[+Hydro]

I think that most people don't notice the bleach smell in tap water because they are used to it. IMO its similiar to someone that smokes doesn't think their clothes smell like smoke but a person that doesn't smoke can tell right away. I can even just flush the toilet at my work and smell bleach! The city water in my area is pulled up from water wells and is then treated with chlorine I believe, my private water well is not. As far as the actual taste of the water there is no competition, my well water is way better than any city water that I have ever had. I'm not surprised about that though, we have far more filtration going on than the city water gets.

[Timfish]

I've been drinking R.O water for over 15 years and maybe it's psychosomatic but Austin tap water smells and tastes like chlorine to me. It's my understanding a carbon filter will break the bond between and absorb the chlorine leaving the ammonia which bacteria (and corals) will use as a food source.

[DaJMasta]

I would hesitate from making ammonia sound so positive.

Some bacteria do eat it, but they convert it directly in nitratres.

Even in tiny, tiny amounts (less than 1ppm) are harmful to aquarium inhabitants - it's quite toxic.

And I'm not so sure corals really eat the ammonia....but I really don't know so maybe so.

That said, the RO membrane will get rid of it fairly well, and I believe the carbon stage breaks it down as well.

[Timfish]

DajMasta, you're right detectable levels of ammonia in our systems is not usually a good thing and an indicator that something is seriously wrong. Ammonia is though an important food source for the vast majority of ecosystems. As far as corals utilizing ammonia here's a link to a study of Madracis mirabilis, Yellow Pencil Coral, a SPS that has rare naturally occurring colonies without zooxanthellae:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/umrsmas/bullmar/1979/00000029/00000004/art00011

Considering most of the nitrogenous waste produce by fish is in the form of ammonia excreted through the gills it seems reasonable that some corals in the wild that have large numbers of fish sheltering in their branches may process very large amounts of ammonia.

It's been at least a decade since I've taken more than a cursory look at ammonia in any of my tanks but this thread motivated me to look at it again. I measured the ammonia level in my R.O. and after adding salt both measured approximately 1.2 ppm. After doing a 20 gal water change in my 110 gal it tested approximately .3 ppm. after 5 hours it had dropped to about .1 ppm and 14 hours later was undetectable with my test kit.