Ammonia in RO/DI

[Beverly]

Thanks for the reply, Steve, even though it's bad news.

Just tried the search function to locate the thread you were talking about, but it's not working right now. Can you give me an approximate date for the thread I'd be looking for? I do not remember seeing it.

Also, I know nothing about RO/DI stuff. Chris looks after that part of our reefing endeavor. He's busy tonight and tomorrow night, but I've told him basically what you've said. He will probably contact you via this thread or by PM to talk more about this issue, if that's okay with you.

Dang!!!! But, thanks

[StirCrazy]

I can't remember probably about a year ago or longer.. come to think of it maybe 2 or more as it was shortly after I bought my new house. it was more or less a statment on the effects of chlorimene and how hard it actualy is to seperate the chlorine and amonia (something like I just said.) no great volumes of wisdom from what I can remember.. that is the time frame when I switched to two carbon block filters.

what I run now is one "big blue" 25 to 1 micron graduated sedimat filter, then two carbon blocks (inline) then my two 160GPD membrains.

so I am basicly going to add two more granulated carbon stages befor the carbon blocks.

something that will work good but is expensive is run your DI befor the membrains.. personaly I wouldn't do it due to the cost but I have heard it removes chloramin like a hot damn.

Steve

[Beverly]

The search function works if you use it correctly

This is the thread I found....

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...ght=chloramine

which has a link to Reefkeeping Magazine's article on chloramine....

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...ture/index.php

The funny thing is that our reefs are doing great. Now that I'm paying attention to alk, Ca and Mg, corals and coralline algae are booming. Fish are in good health as well.

[Beverly]

Another article on RO/DI units from Reefkeeping Magazine....

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-05/rhf/index.php



Well, my hair was on fire yesterday over the .5 ppm ammonia in our RO/DI water.

Today, I'm not so sure this is such a huge issue. We've kept reefs since 1999. Chloramine has been in Edmonton's water long before we began reefkeeping. Up until 2003, we used RO water. When we moved to our new condo in Feb 2003, we switched to RO/DI.

In all that time, we did not appear to have any problems with the water going into our various tanks, ranging from 2.5g and 7g nanos, to our old 180g, to our present 37g, 67g and 120g reefs. For awile, we kept seahorses using this water. Overall, fish have been in good health, unless we introduced sick fish to a tank, or unless we experienced toxic events from dead exotic inverts. Corals, for the most part, have also been in good health, though in the early years we were not particularly aware on proper reef chemistry and I'm sure they all could have used better care in that area. Inverts have been doing well, too.

So now we find out that our RO/DI water has .5 ppm ammonia. It has probably always been present and we simply did not know about it. What are we going to do now that we have more knowledge? I don't know. Dear husband will read the articles and threads, maybe ask some questions and implement a few solutions, like an inline TDS meter, and more frequent filter/membrane changes. Or, we may continue on doing as we have always done and maybe just add Prime to the water after salting it.

I would still like as many Edmonton reefers as possible to check the ammonia coming out of their RO or RO/DI units and report it to this thread. I'm kind of wondering why only Gizmo has tested his water. Maybe the "ignorance is bliss" attitude may be at work here, or folks haven't read the thread, or nobody wants to take 7 minutes out of their busy schedules to test their water, though these are obviously just guesses.

Anyway, Edmonton reefers, PLEASE test your RO or RO/DI water for ammonia and post your findings to this thread!

TIA

[Psyire]

Is someone able to do this test with a salifert kit?

[mark]

Live in the NE and have zero NH3 in the tap, rodi output and tank water.

Few things from this thread.
-even if there was ammonia in the tap, thought the purpose of the ro/di unit was to filter everything harmful out
-the comment that the membrane is damaged by chlorine, the prefilters remove 100 % of the chlorine then
-Aquasafe recommends changing filters every 6 months, if they go past their life, do they block up or start passing stuff?

[mr_alberta]

They will do both. The used up carbon filters will allow more chemicals to pass and the sediment cartridge will plug up.

I'd test my water, but I don't own a test kit

[TheReefGeek]

I thought I had a salifert ammonia test, but only a nitrate one. My ammonia is a hagen

[Beverly]

Mark,

Surprised that you don't get any ammonia readings from testing the tapwater. What kit are you using? I get about 1 ppp ammonia using an Aquarium Pharmaceuticals kit. When I add Prime to tapwater, I get 0 ppm ammonia.

BTW, ammonia is definitely added to Edmonton's water. It is added to chlorine to make the disinfecting properties of chlorine longer lasting and more effective. The chlorine/ammonia compound is called chloramine. Chloramine has been in Edmonton's drinking water for quite awhile, longer than I have been reefkeeping since 1999.

Epcor's E.L. Smith Water Treatment Process, where it shows where in the water treatment process chlorine and ammonia are added ....

http://www.epcor.ca/Communities/Albe...eWTProcess.htm

2005 Monthly Water Quality Summary Reports, pick a month and look for Total Residual Chlorine. This is how Epcor reports chloramine, which isn't very useful to us as aquarists, but what are you gonna do....

http://www.epcor.ca/Customers/Commer...ry+Reports.htm

Epcor's Water Quality Glossary of Terms....

http://www.epcor.ca/Customers/Commer...tyGlossary.htm

Have just been on the phone with a guy from Epcor. He said chloramine, chlorine and ammonia are not listed as such, but to look for Chlorine, (Total Residual) in the Glossary of Terms page (above).

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by mr_alberta

I'd test my water, but I don't own a test kit

Ack!! How can that be? I'll test your water if you bring samples over.

Rory,

Test it with the Hagen one and see what you get. Test both tapwater and RO water, if you wouldn't mind.