Chloramine

[Joel Wadleigh]

Hello fellow catfish growers. I live in Austin, Texas and I'm in the early stages of cycling my outdoor flood and drain aquaponic system in preparation for catfish and I've hit some snags.

I've been putting goldfish in the tank to increase the nitrogen levels and they've been dying very quickly. At first I thought it was maybe poor acclimation or extreme cold at night, but I've since learned that comet goldfish should do fine at 60 degrees F. I tested the chemistry of the water and found that pH, alkalinity, hardness, and ammonia were all fine, but chlorine was a little high. After looking into what is put in the tap water here, I learned that chloramine is the only disinfectant added. My tank has mostly tap water in it. I thought the chlorine in it would off-gas if I let it sit, but if it's chloramine, I think it's probably persisting since it is a much more stable compound in dilute solutions. My question is, how would you guys treat tap water to get rid of chloramine? I've heard that using sodium metabisulfite or potassium metabisulfite are good ways to remove chloramine, but I'm concerned about whatever sulfur products that might leave in the water. I've read superchlorination will break up the chloramine so it will off-gas, but putting a huge does of bleach in my system doesn't sound very pleasing, even if it is supposed to all off-gas. I've also read that boiling tap water for a while will remove chloramine, but that sounds expensive and time consuming.

Help!

- Joel from Austin

[Chi Ma]

Sodium Thiosulfate or Seachem Safe will make your water safe.

[Rick Op]

I add a hundred gallons of SW Houston tap water at a time to my catfish/comet fishtank. Doesn't bother the fish. I add it waaay upstream so it has as much interaction with air and "gunk" as possible before dropping into the FT. My FT is also my Sump, and a hundred gallons would be from 15% to 33% of the water, depending on how low it has gotten.

I think my bio-load ("gunk") helps deactivate the chlorination in the tap water. What I still do not know FOR SURE is whether my neighborhood tap water has Chlorine or Choramine. Even the expert at the local aquarium shop does not seem to know for sure.

I would explore charcoal before chemical additives. But that's just me. Calgon Charcoal has big bags of the stuff but someone could also use no-additive hardwood charcoal chunks as the bottom strata of a growbed, eh?

Hope this helps...

Rick Op

[Joel Wadleigh]

This seems to be the consensus from local aquarium folk. Thanks for the advice!

Chi Ma said:

Sodium Thiosulfate or Seachem Safe will make your water safe.

[Joel Wadleigh]

The charcoal is a good idea. It sounds cheap and dirty which is the motto for this project. I'm going to try a carbon biofilter and some sulfur compound to at least treat the first tankful of tap water, then maybe I won't worry about chlorine, though I've heard some pretty scary stuff about chloramine from a local Botanist. Thanks for the advice!

Rick Op said:

I add a hundred gallons of SW Houston tap water at a time to my catfish/comet fishtank. Doesn't bother the fish. I add it waaay upstream so it has as much interaction with air and "gunk" as possible before dropping into the FT. My FT is also my Sump, and a hundred gallons would be from 15% to 33% of the water, depending on how low it has gotten.

I think my bio-load ("gunk") helps deactivate the chlorination in the tap water. What I still do not know FOR SURE is whether my neighborhood tap water has Chlorine or Choramine. Even the expert at the local aquarium shop does not seem to know for sure.

I would explore charcoal before chemical additives. But that's just me. Calgon Charcoal has big bags of the stuff but someone could also use no-additive hardwood charcoal chunks as the bottom strata of a growbed, eh?

Hope this helps...

Rick Op

[Joel Wadleigh]

Do you (or anyone else) have an opinion on whether or not Campden tablets (potassium metabisulfate) will do the trick? They're used in winemaking to eliminate chlorine and chloramine, and they're nice and cheap, so I thought they might be a good alternative.

Chi Ma said:

Sodium Thiosulfate or Seachem Safe will make your water safe.

[TCLynx]

Ok, take this advice with a grain of salt since I've never personally had to deal with chloramine and aquaponics since I have good well water.

I would probably use the sodium Thiosulfate to deal with the chloramine in the new system since it is a large amount of water to deal with right off.  Then cycle up fishless since neutralizing the chloramine will actually lave you with ammonia in the water to start cycling anyway.

Then in the future, perhaps carbon filtering the top up water will be enough as long as you are only topping up a small amount at a time.  Keep in mind that most carbon filters are not slow enough to fully neutralize the chloramine.  Carbon filters can take care of chloramine but they have to be very slow.

[Joel Wadleigh]

About how often do you add that might water, Rick? Is your tank around 300 gal, like mine is?

Rick Op said:

I add a hundred gallons of SW Houston tap water at a time to my catfish/comet fishtank. Doesn't bother the fish. I add it waaay upstream so it has as much interaction with air and "gunk" as possible before dropping into the FT. My FT is also my Sump, and a hundred gallons would be from 15% to 33% of the water, depending on how low it has gotten.

I think my bio-load ("gunk") helps deactivate the chlorination in the tap water. What I still do not know FOR SURE is whether my neighborhood tap water has Chlorine or Choramine. Even the expert at the local aquarium shop does not seem to know for sure.

I would explore charcoal before chemical additives. But that's just me. Calgon Charcoal has big bags of the stuff but someone could also use no-additive hardwood charcoal chunks as the bottom strata of a growbed, eh?

Hope this helps...

Rick Op

[Joel Wadleigh]

Do you say don't use metabisulfates because it will mess up the current microbial ecology or because you think it will persist and make it difficult to establish a microbial ecology in the long term?

Randall Wimbish said:

Don't  use the wine sanitizer 's metabisulafates in your system!   Not good for the biofilter. No bleach --- No Hydrogen Peroxide either.  The Austin water has high Ammonia when you test it with the API kit . Probably from the chloramine.  Let it sit for 24 hours without an air pump with a bubbler or 12 with.  I was losing comet goldfish for a while in one of my systems as well. I think it was from other things besides chloramines. I overstocked that system with fingerling catfish fingerlings expecting to lose some but it didn't happen. Since you live in Austin, Do you need a few? 

[Rick Op]

Joel Wadleigh said:

About how often do you add that might water, Rick? Is your tank around 300 gal, like mine is?

Um, less than once a week. It's an in-ground concrete-lined (read: 8.2 pH), ornamental, ~900 gallon or more goldfish pond.

[Rick Op]

What's funny, Rick Op is in Austin ALL DAY TODAY but being confined to an office building downtown, can't meet up with you guys.

[stephen gould]

Hello,

I would try a charcoal filter. You can research this first, then if experts say it will work, you can buy a canister filter with charcoal elements at a local hardware store and plumb it in line out from your pump back to the tank. You will want to put it on the pressure side of the pump so as it loads it will not starve the pump and burn it up. It is a filter and will load with sediment, although its purpose is to remove chemicals. Replacement cartriges should run about $10 for a 2 pack. Do some more research first and good luck!!!

Steve

[TCLynx]

What stephen says is why I would just use the water conditioner chemicals to break up the chloramine to let the chlorine outgass and then the ammonia would be there to start cycling.  Since trying to pump system water through a filter is kinda tough and chloramine needs a long residence time in a charcoal filter in order to be dealt with so I don't think pumping through the filer fast would work very well and it could be really hard on the pump too.

Once the initial water is dealt with, I think a simple hose end carbon filter might provide just enough help to allow you to do small top ups without too much worry.