Chlorine

[B. Pearcy]

For those of you on city water sources, how do/did you deal with the chlorine when setting up your system?

 

Do you add some aquarium product to it?

Or, do you let it "sit" for a specific period of time?

 

I hope these are not silly questions. I just don't know how to find the answers yet.

[LogicalHydro]

First I would suggest seeing if your water contains chlorine or chloramine. The city water site has to tell you which they use.

[Chi Ma]

When I first fill up the system I use Seachem Prime at the recommended dosages. After it has cycled I top off with just straight tap.

[Mike Creuzer]

I've always had good luck 'aging' water for my aquariums - 15 years of doing this, so I brought this habit into my Aquaponics practices.  I have a bucket of water that is marked 'no soap' that I fill and let just sit - usually about a week as I tend to do maintenance during the weekends. The cat LOVEs this bucket, it's his favorite drinking container. If I needed water in a hurry, I dropped an air stone in it - the surface agitation helps the chlorine diffuse into the air.

 

I recently got my Carbon water filter set up, as I am now handling more water than is easy to do by aging water.

This is an Activated Carbon water prefilter for the Reverse Osmosis filter for a home dialysis machine. It takes 2 very large sacks of carbon, 50lbs each I think. It has 3 gallons per minute water flow. Total overkill, but the price was right - freecycle. The booklet that came with it mentions chlorine test strips, so somebody makes a test set for chlorine. I've never seen one however.

 

The chlorine is bad for the bacteria for the system, so if I add chlorine contaminated water, i try to add it right after my media grow bed. This gives the most amount of dilution, water agitation, and time before it gets back to my precious bacteria.

 

As long as your not adding a significant amount of water to the system at any given time, I am not too worried about doing water top-offs. The concentrations should be pretty dilute. I would treat if you where doing a post-leak refill of somesuch though.

[Aaron]

Wait, it's possible to remove chlorine from water with an airstone? Did I misunderstand this?

Mike Creuzer said:

I've always had good luck 'aging' water for my aquariums - 15 years of doing this, so I brought this habit into my Aquaponics practices.  I have a bucket of water that is marked 'no soap' that I fill and let just sit - usually about a week as I tend to do maintenance during the weekends. The cat LOVEs this bucket, it's his favorite drinking container. If I needed water in a hurry, I dropped an air stone in it - the surface agitation helps the chlorine diffuse into the air.

 

I recently got my Carbon water filter set up, as I am now handling more water than is easy to do by aging water.

This is an Activated Carbon water prefilter for the Reverse Osmosis filter for a home dialysis machine. It takes 2 very large sacks of carbon, 50lbs each I think. It has 3 gallons per minute water flow. Total overkill, but the price was right - freecycle. The booklet that came with it mentions chlorine test strips, so somebody makes a test set for chlorine. I've never seen one however.

 

The chlorine is bad for the bacteria for the system, so if I add chlorine contaminated water, i try to add it right after my media grow bed. This gives the most amount of dilution, water agitation, and time before it gets back to my precious bacteria.

 

As long as your not adding a significant amount of water to the system at any given time, I am not too worried about doing water top-offs. The concentrations should be pretty dilute. I would treat if you where doing a post-leak refill of somesuch though.

[Chi Ma]

You aren't actually removing it. You are using aeration to help it off gas.

Aaron said:

Wait, it's possible to remove chlorine from water with an airstone? Did I misunderstand this?

[Sylvia Bernstein]

I use an in-line hose filter like this one - http://www.theaquaponicstore.com/Garden-Hose-Chlorine-Filter-p/awcw....  I love it because I just don't worry about chlorine at all, and it lasts a whole year.

[TCLynx]

Chlorine will outgass if you leave the water out in the sun or with an air stone in it or even just sitting in a bucket and depending on the amount of water and the concentration of chlorine it could tank a day to three.

 

Chloramine on the other hand is far more stable in the water and it takes more like three weeks to a month to outgass and so most people will need to use a filter that can deal with it.  Chloramine is bad enough that in order to bake bread one needs to use filtered water or the chloramine will kill the yeast.

 

As noted initial fill or for water changes it is important to neutralize or deal with the water treatment chemicals some how but once a system is good and stable, small (10% or less) water top ups are usually not a problem provided your city doesn't go crazy on the chemicals.  Just make sure to get one of those hose timers so you don't go forgetting you have the hose running and doing an inadvertent large water change.