Phosphoric Acid and Chloramines

Is tehre a chemical reaction that occurs when Phosphoric Acid is introduced to water treated with chloramines that causes the chlorine to break it binds with ammonia.

Recently I mixed up a batch of StarSan with my tap water (inordinately hard with an extremely alkaline pH, and treated with chloramines) instead of bottled RO.

When I mix with RO, the StarSan solution stays viable for over a year. But this time whithin a matter of days the solution took on the often described murky, cloudy appearance. When I went to dump it out, as soon as I opened the 5 gallon water bottle I got a strong blast of chlorine similar to the smell of a extremely overchlorinated swimming pool.

What happened with that? Just curious of the chemical reaction really, I'll not use that mix again. Lesson learned. Fortnately, given previous experience with Iodophor and tap water neutralization I pH tested the solution before I used it to sanitize and it was spot on at pH 3.

This is a good question for Five Star Chemicals.

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I don't know about phosphoric acid and chloramines, but I do know that phosphoric acid does react with calcium to form an insoluble product that turns the solution all cloudy. The danger here is that if enough of the phosporic acid reacts with the calcium, the pH could get too high and greatly decrease the sanitizing power of the solution. As long as the pH is <3 it is fine, cloudy or not.