Chloramine - check your water source!

[hillegom]

Mike, will your test strips also check for chloramines?
Thanks

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by hillegom

Mike, will your test strips also check for chloramines?
Thanks

Don't think so. It's an AquaChek pool & spa test kit. You can see on the colour chart that it tests for 'free' chlorine. I'm assuming that since chloramine is chlorine combined with ammonia, it won't provide accurate indication of the presence of chloramine. However, since a carbon filter is supposed to separate the chlorine & ammonia, it may still be useful to check for traces of chlorine after your carbon stage. AquaChek has a web site so you could probably find more info there.

[hillegom]

Thanks Mike.
I see on their website that they also sell a strip that tests for 7 parameters.
Two of interest, free chlorine and total chlorine. I think the chloramines would be included in the total chlorine

[mike31154]

Ya, not a bad deal these strips. As you can see the one I have also does pH & alk. Don't recall if I tried one of these strips in my tank water. Might should do that some time & compare to the liquid test kit readings. According to their site, the strips may end up being more accurate due to less prone to errors as when counting drops of reagent with the liquid kits.

[StirCrazy]

If you're testing for chloramines, make sure the test kit is testing for "total chlorine" or "combined chlorine," not for "free chlorine." A test for "free chlorine" would misleadingly read zero in chloraminated water.

also by testing for amonia you can determin if there is chloramines present.

heres a good read http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-11/rhf/feature/

Steve

[mark]

would the chlorine test kits work with salt water? Thinking maybe testing for a possible buildup of chloramine in the display.

[Myka]

I sent an email a few days ago to SpectraPure asking some questions about chloramines and filter cartridges, but haven't received a reply yet. I will send a PM to Buckeye Field Supply...I'm surprised he hasn't hopped in on this thread yet.

Thanks for posting Mike, where do you get those test strips? I've been wanting to buy chlorine test strips...maybe they have one for chloramines too.

I tested my RO/DI water for ammonia and there was no ammonia detected. I should test before the DI resin.

Originally Posted by hillegom

Two of interest, free chlorine and total chlorine. I think the chloramines would be included in the total chlorine

Total chlorine - free chlorine = chloramines (in our case anyway)

[mike31154]

The test strips are for pool/spa. You should be able to get them any place that has pool or spa maintenance stuff. I think I might have seen the kit at Wal Merde but I got mine at a spa/hot tub business outlet. It's an AquaChek as you can see in the photo I posted. They also make kits that test for 'combined' or 'total' chlorine, but I'm not sure what that means exactly... combined with what? May or may not be ammonia. I think I read somewhere in the research that once chlorine hits the water, it starts 'combining' with some of the stuff which it's designed to kill or neutralize. This may not necessarily be ammonia, which is what it's combined with to make chloramine? Confused yet? I sure as hell am & real glad Vernon just uses chlorine.

There's already some good info on chloramines & how to best deal with them for our application on the Spectrapure FAQ site:

http://www.spectrapure.com/SYSTEM_BREAKDOWN.htm

phideltreefer already posted the link but only provided a partial quote in is post here. If you read the whole article, most of your questions should be answered.

"Our dual cartridge combination of DI-SF-CI-10 followed by DI-AR-CI-10 is an effective and more economical way to remove the ammonia"

Steve's link to reefkeeping pretty well covers it too....

[Myka]

Ok, thanks...was hoping I could get it at hardware store, but not likely I guess.

[Buckeye Field Supply]

Hi folks - thanks for the heads up Myka!.

The key with chloramines is to provide adequate contact time with the carbon prefilters. In some situations, one good carbon block is sufficient. Our practice to to always include two carbon prefilters in systems used with chloramines.

Don't bother with a standard GAC cartridge.

Catalytic GAC is another story. It is a super fast acting GAC and we include this as the first of two carbon stages in our Chloramine Special RODI's. The CGAC cartridges are axial flow - meaning the water must flow through the length of the cartridge to maximize contact time. The second carbon block we use is a top of the line, 20,000 gallon, 0.5 mic block - the best we can find.

As mentioned previously in the thread, you will see relatively fasted DI depletion with waters containing chloramines. A dual stage DI is not a bad idea with these waters.

Russ