how to remove chloramines

[boss429]

So I've been reading alot about this stuff because my water has chloramines. Now I over think things sometimes but here is what I have found.

Firstly

ammonia + chlorine = chloramines... along these lines is this statement true?

So can I test if my water has chloramines with ammonia test strips, liquid, or powder?

If so has anyone tried this after applying conventional chloramine removal techniques?

Secondly

I question if campden tablets can really take chloramines out because of the lack of references. I have yet to see a reputable institution confirm that campden tablets are an effective mothod to remove chloramines. So i decided to take the alternative route and read on aquarium forums. The forums said along the lines that if it doesn’t have a chemical that changes ammonia to ammonium it leaves it behind toxic ammonia. I have more confidence in the aquarium supply because If they were lying fish would be dead right?( I am aware no refrences for aquaium products)

Now this is the product i would have more confidence in because wouldent fish die if it didnt work?

http://www.petstore.com/ps_viewitem...cse&utm_campaign=pscseggl2&utm_content=SC4437

Has anyone tried something like this? opinion on using it? Or in general on my skepticism about chloramine removal?

thank you for reading

 

[boss429]

just read my aquarium product I was considering

Prime™ also promotes the production and regeneration of the natural slime coat

that dosent sound good...

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

just read my aquarium product I was considering

Prime™ also promotes the production and regeneration of the natural slime coat

that dosent sound good...

Haha! Well, the fish produce the slime coat, the chemical just helps them do their fish stuff.

 

[Scimmia]

What are you looking for for references? If you're just searching for campden, I can see why you're not finding the information. If you search for potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulfite, you should turn up the info. A quick google search turns up an article from a chemical engineer at Aquafine.

 

[Ichthy]

Pretty sure none of the aquarium products are FDA approved. I know i wouldn't put those chemicals in my beer, even though it doesn't kill the fish.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Yes. Potassium Metabisulfite or Sodium Metabisulfite (aka Campden) do remove chloramines. First the bond between the chlorine and the ammonia is brokenand the chlorine is then eliminated leaving sulfite and small amounts (insignifigant) of ammonia.

Other sources say Vitamin C also nutralizes chloramine.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Pretty sure none of the aquarium products are FDA approved. I know i wouldn't put those chemicals in my beer, even though it doesn't kill the fish.

Have you ever looked?

Why wouldn't they be? You do realize there are aquariums in hundreds to thousands of restaurants and grocers across the nations don't you? Fresh fish buddy.

 

[Ichthy]

Have you ever looked?

Why wouldn't they be? You do realize there are aquariums in hundreds to thousands of restaurants and grocers across the nations don't you? Fresh fish buddy.

During my time working with OK Wildlife Dept. we were not allowed to treat fish with amquel or slime coat protection if the fish could be immediately caught and consumed by the public.

Was on their website (amquel the chlorine remover) and found nothing indicating it was safe for human consumption, but did not find that it wasn't either.

 

[passedpawn]

The MSDS for Prime is online at Seachem, but is a joke. Stuff smells of sulfur, so that alone would keep me from using it (I've thought about it tho ). I have gallon (yes, a gallon) container of it. I keep a reef tank.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

The MSDS for Prime is online at Seachem, but is a joke. Stuff smells of sulfur, so that alone would keep me from using it (I've thought about it tho ). I have gallon (yes, a gallon) container of it. I keep a reef tank.

I get that but, crushed campden smells of sulfur too.

I am NOT advocating it's use blindly. It's just that broad statements like "none of the _____ are FDA approved" is untrue. I assure you there is a a product that is FDA approved for use in a grocer/restaurant tank. I just have NO IDEA what it is.

 

[passedpawn]

I get that but, crushed campden smells of sulfur too.

Thanks, I guess no point in buying the tablets them. Maybe I'll test out the Prime. Wish me luck.

 

[Ichthy]

I get that but, crushed campden smells of sulfur too.

I am NOT advocating it's use blindly. It's just that broad statements like "none of the _____ are FDA approved" is untrue. I assure you there is a a product that is FDA approved for use in a grocer/restaurant tank. I just have NO IDEA what it is.

THe OP specifically mentioned pet stores, hence my statement, so it wasn't totally blind. I'm sure there are FDA approved chlorine removers, they just aren't available at the pet store.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

THe OP specifically mentioned pet stores, hence my statement, so it wasn't totally blind. I'm sure there are FDA approved chlorine removers, they just aren't available at the pet store.

Not trying to get into a pissing match but, a quick google dug up Kent Pro Tech Coat Freshwater. A slime coat protector with EPA/FDA approval.

Available at Pet Stores.

All I am saying is do not blindly assume that because a prodeuct is packaged for use in an Aquarium, Pool, or whatever that it is not a FDA approved compound. Do the research and decide for yourself. It is much better to advocate the research than to blatently say that no aquarium product has FDA approval. Agreed?

And in retrospect, do not assume that every product on the shelves at LHBS has a similar approval either. Do YOU know where ther chemicals are sourced? Do YOU know the purity of the compounds?

I buy all my water treatment chemicals from a wholesale supplier that specializes in water treatment. Mostly for pools. Why? Because they have the techincal data to support the purity of the compounds they offer. And on-site chemists to clarify and discuss the consideration of the applications.

Try digging up the MSDS for commonly packaged products via Crosby and Baker. Most are a joke at best.

 

[samc]

Campden tablets work, however I filter my water (Charcoal & RO) and it works great. I'm a less is more guy and don't like to add one chemical to get rid of another, even if it is a common practice.

 

[JonK331]

I bought a filter from Aquasana. Their website doesn't say anything about chloramine removal specifially. However, if you talk to them on the phone they claim that their filters remove 99% of chloramine but you have to change the filter a bit more frequently. Ever since I started using the filter I've been getting better attenuation and cleaner tasting beer. Only downside is the filter is a bit slow, it takes about 20 minutes each for strike and sparge water.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

To remove chloramines from water with activated carbon, the flow rate has to be slow to be effective. the down side is liberated ammonia. In brewing that is not an issue however, some brands of filters do include an ammonia absorbent for this.

 

[ajdelange]

ammonia + chlorine = chloramines... along these lines is this statement true?

Essentially. The water is treated with chlorine forming hypochlorous acid
H2O + Cl2 --> HOCl + HCl.

Then ammonia gas is bubbled through

HOCl + NH3 --> NH2Cl + H2O

So can I test if my water has chloramines with ammonia test strips, liquid, or powder?

The usual test involves DPD, an organic substance that it oxidized by chlorine (but not chloramine) to a magenta dye. If you want to know about chloramine specifically the test includes potassium iodide. Chloramine oxidizes iodide to iodine and iodine oxidizes DPD to the colored form. Test kits for "total and free" chlorine are sold by manufacturers like Hach.

If so has anyone tried this after applying conventional chloramine removal techniques?

Hell yes, and unconventional ones too.

I question if campden tablets can really take chloramines out because of the lack of references. I have yet to see a reputable institution confirm that campden tablets are an effective mothod to remove chloramines.

References abound. Many, many water treatment plants use bisulfite to control excess chlorine and chloramine. Any text on water treatment chemistry give details.

So i decided to take the alternative route and read on aquarium forums. The forums said along the lines that if it doesn’t have a chemical that changes ammonia to ammonium it leaves it behind toxic ammonia. I have more confidence in the aquarium supply because If they were lying fish would be dead right?( I am aware no refrences for aquaium products)

The amount of ammonia as opposed to ammonium is dependent on pH. At pH 9.25 the amounts are about equal. At pH 8.25 there is 10 times more ammonium ion and at pH 7.25 100 times more. As ammonia is very toxic to fish that is more than is allowable in an aquarium. Quite by contrast, ammonium is beneficial to yeast. Many yeast nutrients contain an ammonium salt or urea which converts to ammonium in the presence of enzymes in the yeast.

Campden tablets are successfully used by thousands of brewers all over the world and, as noted, bisulfite is used by municipal water suppliers all over the world. Campden tablets are, clearly, food grade as they are dumped into wine at about the rate of 1 per gallon. In clearing chloramine 1 is sufficent to treat 20 gallons. I would certainly prefer to use Campden tablets to some product intended for fish!

 

[boss429]

Ok ill read about potassium iodide.

Ok in response to refrences I want a 3rd party refrence from someone who does not sell water treatment products haha. That study or interpretation will have a great bias, so great that it makes the study invalid.

I'm looking more along the lines something like this stuff

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

thanks for replies I will read further into them later because I have to study atm

 

[indigi]

I don't have Campden tablets, just powdered potassium metabisulfite. How much should I use per gallon to treat my water, and how long does it take?

 

[bob1852]

I don't have Campden tablets, just powdered potassium metabisulfite. How much should I use per gallon to treat my water, and how long does it take?

from wiki...

Campden tablets typically weigh 0.44 g each and 10 of these are equivalent to one level teaspoon of sodium metabisulfite

 

[ajdelange]

boss429: Not sure whether you are questioning the efficacy or the safety at this point. You can certainly test the efficacy simply enough. Crumble a campden tablet, pulverize a tiny bit and add it to a glass of water that contains chloramine. Then pour the water back and forth between two glasses. The chlorine odor will be gone. You may smell sulfur dioxide but you won't smell chloramine. To satisfy yourself that it is safe do a search on sodium metabisulfite FCC. You will find several vendors selling it in this grade (Food Chemicals Codex). The fact that it is sold in this grade tells you that it is safe in food products (properly used, of course). You are probably aware that some people are allergic to it (hence the warnings on wine bottles and at salad bars where it is sprayed on the veggies to keep them from turning brown) but you need not worry about that in brewing as the sulfite all gets oxidized to sulfate.

indigi: The tablets weigh about 600 mg and will process 20 gal of water dosed to the maximum permissible chloramine level (3 mg/L as chlorine). It should be about the same for the powder (it also varies a little according as to whether the sodium or potassium salt is used). Try what I suggested to boss429 but use the powder instead. Dump a tiny amount into the water, stir and sniff, with agitation, for chlorine. Gradually add more until the chlorine smell is gone and then a bit more until you notice the sulfur dioxide smell. That's enough to do you. The reaction is near instantaneous.

 

[boss429]

ajdelange I agree you are right good test smell but thats assuming chloramine has an odor. what if chloramines dont have odors?

again i plugged chloramine odor online and can find no reliable source that is not a water solutions website that talks anything about specifically chloramine odor. They like to talk about chlorine/chloramine odor.

But I believe campden tablets most likely work but I am still not perfectly certain.

Lets say campden tablets do work how do they affect the mineral profile?

sample question

i want to calculate my final sulfate in ppm.

my water profile is

2.3 ppm chloramines

.42ppm chlorite

.27 chlorate

96ppm in sulfates

I add 1/2 campden tablet to 7 gallons of water

right so they have sulfites that turn into sulfates right?

whats the final ppm in sulfates?

Is this even possible to calculate with out knowing which specific chloramines are being used?

I will try to figure this out later tonite. Ima whip out my community college chemistry book and do a quick review and see if I can get anything

 

[ajdelange]

ajdelange I agree you are right good test smell but thats assuming chloramine has an odor. what if chloramines dont have odors?

Well they definitely do. When you go to a swimming pool and smell "chlorine" you are actually smelling chloramine. Hypochlorite is added to the water to disinfect it and the kids provide the ammonia in the form of sweat and pee. Again, it should be easy to convince yourself of this. Just boil some chloraminated water for a few minutes. What you smell in the water at the completion of the boil is not chlorine as it has all been driven off. I had a tenant in a rental property that once mixed household bleach and ammonia. She could tell you what chloramine smells like. DON'T TRY THAT EXPERIMENT! She was lucky.

again i plugged chloramine odor online and can find no reliable source that is not a water solutions website that talks anything about specifically chloramine odor. They like to talk about chlorine/chloramine odor.

I don't know where else you would expect to find a discussion of it. It's fine to be skeptical but you can go too far. What would be the motivation for someone in the water treatment business to lie about the odor of chloramine when anybody in the industry (and their consumers) knows what it smells like?

But I believe campden tablets most likely work but I am still not perfectly certain.

You must be from "Missouri". So try it and convince yourself one way or the other.

Lets say campden tablets do work how do they affect the mineral profile?

sample question

i want to calculate my final sulfate in ppm.

my water profile is

2.3 ppm chloramines

.42ppm chlorite

.27 chlorate

96ppm in sulfates

Wow. Chlorite and chlorate. Does your water supplier disinfect with chlorine dioxide? I didn't think chlorine dioxide was used that much in the US. I don't think I've ever seen these 2 in a water report. Where do you live or, rather, where does your water come from?

I have no idea as to whether metabite will reduce chlorite and/or chlorate. They are usually apparently gone after with Fe(II) ion and active carbon filtration is also supposed to be effective. I have no experience with them. So I'll limit my comments to the 2.3 ppm chloramine. Each mg chloramine, as chlorine, reacted with metabite produces, obviously, 1 ppm chloride ion, 2.7 mg of sulfate ion, 0.51 mg ammonium ion and 1.1 mg potassium if the potassium salt is used or 0.6 mg if the sodium salt is used. Thus your sulfate would be increased by 6.2 mg/L in dealing with this much chloramine.

I add 1/2 campden tablet to 7 gallons of water

right so they have sulfites that turn into sulfates right?

whats the final ppm in sulfates?

Is this even possible to calculate with out knowing which specific chloramines are being used?

If you get the stoichimetry just right all the metabite will be converted to sulfate and your total would be 102.2. If you have an excess of metabite there will be residual SO2 in the water. This will either reduce something in the mash (a good thing to the point that I know of a couple of brewers who add metabite to the mash or kettle) or be driven off by the heat of the boil

 

[boss429]

ok nice i just wanted an estimate to see how much sulfates the tabs would add. Aj you sound like an authority what are your credentials?

 

[ajdelange]

Credentials? Two degrees in electrical engineering with 45 year experience in that field. Been studying brewing science for about half that. I've written magazine (New Brewer, Brewing Techniques - that one was on the current subject, BTW) and journal (JASBC, Cerevesia) articles, taught brewing water chemistry seminars and have given a lecture at the DeClerck Chair in Louvain on water chemistry but I consider my main credential to be more than 20 years home brewing experience. Something must have rubbed off in that time.

 

[arturo7]

What, an actual scientist in the science forum?

Maybe there's still hope for the internetz.

 

[kwantam]

boss429, I'm not sure where your skepticism is coming from, but the chemistry of Na2S2O5 or K2S2O5 reducing NH2Cl is relatively straightforward and thus not likely to be a discussed thoroughly in any recent peer reviewed papers.

As others have said, textbooks or other publications on water treatment will likely lead you to the answers you're looking for. For example, here's a white paper that discusses declorination of water (in this case the context is an RO membrane that is damaged by chlorinated water, but that's not particularly important).

The discussion in that paper is on sodium metabisulfite, but the chemistry of potassium metabisulfite is precisely the same: in the presence of water, potassium metabisulfite becomes potassium bisulfite, which reduces hypochlorous acid to form potassium sulfate and hydrochloric acid.