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Hi Peter, after reading your post I would like you to recommend a good reactor to me as my diffuser seems to clog up despite recent cleaning.
If you can't do it openly, just pm me the brand and the lfs where it can be bought.
Jason Wong
A good CO2 reactor should have high efficiency(doesn't waste much CO2) and good response time (meaning it does not need to run the CO2 24/7 in order to keep the CO2 levels between 20-30ppm range throughout the entire photoperiod. Wimpy reactors or diffusors require you to do so as they have poor mixing methods and requires a longer duration to hit the targeted good CO2 levels.). Personally, I rather inject CO2 only when the lights come on...you can add more when needed during the day without having to worry about buildup of CO2 levels during the night which cannot be said for folks doing 24/7 though. Plants do not need CO2 at night...give them what they want as much as possible during the day.Originally Posted by Deborah
Regards
Peter Gwee :wink:
Hi Peter, after reading your post I would like you to recommend a good reactor to me as my diffuser seems to clog up despite recent cleaning.
If you can't do it openly, just pm me the brand and the lfs where it can be bought.
Jason Wong
Sorry, KL, but I refuse to believe a word of this until you tell me exactly how many ppm you read (or cannot detect) from a good test kit for chlorine. [Since you can get it from spa and swimming-pool sources, it is far, far cheaper than the junk they sell at the LFS. I pay less than US$1 for a big bottle of reagent that lasts a very long time at 3-5 drops/test.]Wright, I'm aware of the danger but over here, there's hardly any chlorine in the water that comes through the taps. I live in a government-built flat at the 8th storey. My block is 12 storeys high. From the 6th storey upwards, all the residents get their water from a tank located at the roof of the block. The water is pumped up the night before and stored in this tank. Any chlorine in the water would have evaporated by the time it reaches our taps.
It has been reported here in these forums that SG gets water from a wide variety of sources. All get tested and dosage is adjusted to local conditions. Some may have none, but you can never count on that not changing.
Almost all modern city water supplies use chloramine, which takes many weeks to disipate. Even chlorine will not go away in any closed container without vigorous aeration (or horrid amounts of organic decay). I know. I killed some nice Nothos because I stored chlorinated tap water in a 55G food-safe barrel, but failed to have sufficient surface agitation. Days later, it still tested high (>1ppm) for chlorine. [Unfortunately that test was after I had disposed of the bodies.]
I'm terribly unsure how you know you have not damaged your fish with chloramine/chlorine? [I have no idea how those discus folks treated their change water.] Only the most sensitive ever die in the first few days. Usually chlorine burns cause outbreaks of velvet, make the fish more likely to be invaded by other parasites, like Camallanus cotti, or bacterial infections. There seems to be a threshold effect, and below about a quarter ppm, most species are pretty tolerant of a bit of chlorine. With chloramine, the main problem can be gradual buildup over time, if water is added to replace evaporation.
To me, close observation of the behaviour of the fish gasping or darting, or an unexpected outbreak of disease will send me scurrying to the chlorine test kit to see if I have accidentally introduced a major stress factor. A few Nothos I have kept will die outright in hours at somewhere just below 1 ppm of chloramine/chlorine. Others just have bad egg troubles or just get sick too easily. Some, like discus, may tolerate 1-2 ppm or more.
IMHO, it isn't something you test for every day. It is cheap and quick to do, and can be a good guide for adjusting the water treatment you use. It is invaluable if you catch a major change by your water supplier, and your fish show symptoms of distress. Quick dechlor(am)ination can save lots of grief.
I have had too many good friends lose valuable fish because they said "It always worked OK for me, before." I will not stand by and let it happen if my warnings can head it off. Just mark me down as another annoying nag.
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
Most chlorine will disipate as it comes out of the tap from high to low pressure. This sudden change in pressure can de-gas the liquid. It is for this reason why when using the HPLC (a very sensitive piece of equipment in the lab) we don't bother to de-gas the fresh milliQ water.
Still, there is no harm in testing the water but a zero reading should not be surprising.
Here in the lab we use the water straigh from the tap and we are doing 50% water changes. We have no trouble with chlorine... we do have toruble with water temperature though...
tt4n
I am not sure about the chlorine/chloramine concentration at our tap. I stay in high floor too, 15th of 16. From smell, I could not detect the chlorine. Question, does chloramine smells like chlorine or it is odourless?
I used to service the water treatment plants in Singapore. All were automated using PLC. From this exposure, I get to know that the treatment plants are very well equiped to produce very high quality water. All raw waters are passed through all stages you can name. The water is crystal clear at the end. One interesting treatment I realised is the ozone and UV treatment at the last stage. Chlorine is added just before the water is piped out - its' use is limited to keep it bacteria-free during transportation period.
That could explain why our water has low (and required only little) chlorine content.
Tyrone is quite mistaken about the pressure change dissipating chlorine, as a quick test will tell on any chlorinated supply. I used to use a spray head to increase air contact, and got away with direct tank addition of small amounts, but now that chloramine is routinely used, that is a waste of effort and the fish will quickly suffer.
The amont of chloramine (or chlorine) depends almost entirely on the sources of bacteria the water may encounter. There should be little or none in initial processing if a lot of initial filtration is needed. The remainder is dependent on tests at the tap across the system, and may be affected by how old and/or good the pipes are. Any system with a storage tank can become a source of bacteria, so they, above all, need to be held as suspect.
Around here, the water is not filtered or processed in any way, as the aquifer is a great sand filter. One well in town has a high coliform count, so they add chlorine to the water from that one well. Big-city water is a different matter, as there are thousands of ways to contaminate the supply, so they need a lot of testing all the time.
Unfortunately, if they are doing that testing right, you can get a shot of chloramine with no warning at all when some jerk contaminates your water by failing to use a vacuum breaker where needed. They don't have time to warn you if sudden contamination enters the system. They have to respond instantly.
BTW, the smell and taste of chlorine is variable and greatly amplified by any small amounts of iron in the water. I think chloramine is quite tasteless and odorless, under even very high iron conditions, as the material is so stable there is just no chlorine gas to taste or smell.
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
Come to think of it, I don't see why the introduction of Newater should mean higher levels of chloramine in our tap water. Did they not say that to reduce the "Yaky' factor, Newater from the plant will first be pumped into and mix with the water in the reservoirs for several months (for further cleansing by mother nature) before flowing to our homes?
Unless of course, they would have us believe one thing but do something else.
Be careful what you're implying, Mike. You want to start an uprising or what?
The problem with this thing called chloramine is what we have seen and heard so far is just circumstantial evidence. Someone changes water, the fish die and people jump to the conclusion it's chloramine. We need stronger evidence.
Loh K L
Kwek Leong,
They do add chloramine in the water. Er...evidence? Well, my friend Dr Hsu Li Chieh from the Betta Club Singapore, gets regular updates from PUB! If you want to, I see if I can get him to keep you posted whenever he gets an update.
Like what wright had stated, it is colourless and odourless, so it is indeed almost hard to detect through olfactory means.
In smaller fishes like killies, I think they can be instantly fatal. In fishes like arowanas, one of the early clinical signs that we see, is the deheiscence of the slime coat, which may predispose the fish to tissue inflammation and possible secondary pathogenic attacks. Protrusion of scales due to the underlying tissue inflammation and bacterial infection is common in the aros.
My arowana had gone through these episodes a few times before, when complacency sets in. Thus, it is always prudent to pre-treat the water for chloramine when you perform a partial water change, IMHO.
Cheers,
Kenny
Better still, if you can invite him to the forum. I'm sure that his periodic updates will be most appreciated by the killie folks here.
Regardless of what is circumstantial, personally, I'd rather not wait till all my killies go belly up, then lamenting, "damn the chloramine!"
Kenny, perhaps Dr Hsu can suggest a suitable anti-chloramine product and a affordable test kit for the hobbyists.
I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
Ronnie Lee
Kenny,
It will be great if Dr Hsu can join us in this forum but if he can't, we will appreciate the updates from PUB very much. I'm kind of surprised they add chloramine to the water without informing the general public. You would imagine what with a few thousand fish hobbyists in Singapore, they would have the common sense to do so. I've always have a low opinion of the civil service. Now, my opinion of them has gone down another few notches. Those guys in charge of our water supply are really dumb. Even if they care little for hobbyists, the fact is Singapore is one of the major import/exporters of ornamental fish. Anyone with any sense in his head should know it's very important to keep the public and the farms informed when chloramine is added to the water.
Loh K L
This is weird. A libertarian defending bureaucrats!
Public understanding of the problems of safe water delivery are so poor that the services sometimes find it is better to keep quiet than to give folks an excuse to complain.
I recall an incident a few years back when Palo Alto received their ususal "Hetch Hetchy" water from the SF system, but it wasn't. That water is very low tds and never needed any treatment. During the last major drought, the reservoir was depleted and the water was starting to show turbidity.
San Francisco sent the water south to San Jose, where it could be settled out and treated. As EPA had mandated that all San Jose water be treated with chloramine, all the cities up the peninsula who normally got water with no chlorine or chloramine started getting the treated water. Killifish egg production dropped, in some cases to essentially zero, and mortality was noticeably higher. None of those hobbyists even had a chlorine test kit, as they had never needed one! As a result, most never learned why they had problems that year.
The services involved, and there may have been 8 or 10 cities, all kept their mouth shut, because they didn't want to get sued for the damage they had done. Most probably didn't even know San jose was sending them chloramine, before it happened.
Across the bay, they took a different tack and notified all pet shops and fish stores months in advance of what was planned and how to deal with it. The fine experience that East Bay Municipal Water District had encouraged San Francisco to do the same, when they had to start chloramine this past year.
Depending on how sophisticated the customers are about water chemistry, and how litiguous your society is, the water provider has a tough decision as to how much to try to share with the customers. I have found them universally cooperative and friendly when approached directly, and they are delighted that someone cares about all the esoteric stuff they have to do to deliver a quality product. Try it. You may be amazed at how helpful they will be when they know you care and will listen to them. A lot of what I know about water parameters I learned by cultivating a good relationship with my local water engineers in Santa Clara, and Fremont. The Fremont guy was actually originally trained as a marine biologist, so understood my problems very well. He personally let me know when they planned to switch from chlorine to chloramine.
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
KL, for your info, I am a staff of PUB but not from the water department side...I was quite surprise too by the lack of info on when they will start but from what I heard last year during my course with a couple of folks from the water department side, they are only implementing it this year with a couple of treatment plants and not all. They do have some info on it on the official website though. Here is what is being written...
Regards
Peter Gwee :wink:
Thanks for the info, Peter. I edited the address of the Koi club in your post as the one you showed earlier didn't direct correctly. I have to say, however, the information isn't much. We all know chlorine exists in our water in small quantities but how much chloramine was added recently?
Loh K L
Peter, could you please check with them for a good chloramine test kit? No-frill packaging is fine with me. I really dread water changes these days but the killies need it.
Probably enough to make me skeptical of any data posted online. To think they're obliged, to make the information public, is probably being naive :wink:
Wright, IIRC, you mention Lee Harper DIYing carbon filtration for his flow-through system. If these details were posted in the AKA Members' section, you know there's no way I can access them. Would Lee be willing to shed some light here? [especially when there're many who still fumble in the dark!]
I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
Ronnie Lee
Kwek Leong and Peter,
Well, I'll see what I can do to get Li Chieh over here.
From my conversation with an official from the Ministry of Envt, he told me that the treated waters are passed through several surrogate tanks which contain the various types of fishes (eg. arowanas, discus), to see if these sensitive fishes succumb or not.
As far as I know, Peter should be right that they do not implement chloramine treatment simultaneously to all the water treatment plants, but selectively in different plants at different periods of time. That is why PUB would send periodic updates to Li Chieh on when and where chloramine would be added or whether chlorine is being increased.
Cheers,
Kenny
As I understand, chloramine is chlorine+ammonia. When we use a dechlorinator, we break the chloramine into its constituents, i.e., chlorine and ammonia.
I actually had a rather lengthy post on this in another forum. But really no conclusion as to what works and what doesn't...just food for thought.
http://aquabotanicwetthumb.infopop.c...12&m=408109386
Cheers
Boon Yong
I'm not Peter, but that's an easy one. LFS test kits for chlorine (works exactly the same on chloramine) are expensive. The same kit is available at far lower cost at places that provide pool and spa supplies. All hot tubs must have enough chlorine to keep them from becoming cesspools, but low enough level for eyes to not be burned.Peter, could you please check with them for a good chloramine test kit? No-frill packaging is fine with me. I really dread water changes these days but the killies need it.
Just buy the refill bottle, as you do not need the whole color chart and box. Any hint of yellowing, when the drops are added to clear water is a clue to apply a dechloraminator. Only buy the whole kit (once) if you really want to know how many ppm your water service is adding.
It is entirely in killietalk, which is available as archives to everyone. Lee's paper on his system will be in JAKA soon, but isn't published yet.Probably enough to make me skeptical of any data posted online. To think they're obliged, to make the information public, is probably being naive :wink:
Wright, IIRC, you mention Lee Harper DIYing carbon filtration for his flow-through system. If these details were posted in the AKA Members' section, you know there's no way I can access them. Would Lee be willing to shed some light here? [especially when there're many who still fumble in the dark!
That said, I do not approve his method. Lee is a chemist (PhD, I think) and has industrial sources of activated carbon that you may not be able to tap. He fills a length of PVC pipe with the carbon, and slowly trickles his constant change water through it. IIRC, it was about 2.5" by 5' of pipe.
Chloramine, chlorine, and ammonium are only weakly adsorbed by the carbon. They can be kicked off easily by any more-favored contaminant or they can saturate and "punch through" sometimes delivering a big burst of what you least want. [Carbon in in-tank filters is notorious for killing entire tanks, suddenly.]
I got around the problem by using two filters in series, with a drip-irrigation tap between so I could test right behind the first filter. It can be two whole-house "Taste and Odor" filters or two of the small refrigerator ice-maker filters. With my big ones, with about a 2.5"X9" cartridge, I had to replace the first filter cartridge with the nearly unused second about every 6 months. I then put a new cartridge in the second housing to catch the next "punch through."
IMHO, the commercial filters have better design than I could do in a DIY system, and the chance of accidental channeling, etc. is less in the commercial filter housings. If your equivalent of Home Depot or the plumber cannot supply carbon filters and refills, check the local electronics industry. They use them like toilet paper, and there are probably hundreds sitting in surplus warehouses.
A recent amusing note on this subject was mentioned on killietalk. Go to:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?T24161789
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
A few (simplified) facts:
Chlorine kills bacteria and has been used for about a century to make safe drinking water.
It was recently found unsafe, as chlorine combines with organics in the water system to form trihalomethanes that are cancer-causing agents, like chloroform.
Mixing the chlorine with ammonia formed chloramines that didn't make cancer and stabilized the chlorine from a half-life of hours to many weeks. Chloramine still kills bacteria but is tasteless, odorless and lasts to the end of the delivery system.
Chlorine was treated for more than a half century with photographer's hypo (sodium thiosulfate) to tie it up and render tap water safe for fish.
Treating chloramine with hypo can work, too, but there is a danger that the burst of ammonium it releases may cause damage. If you are utterly dead-certain sure your pH will never go above 7.5, you may be safe using an old dechlor product to treat chloramine.
Unfortunately, many water systems go through copper pipes with lead-based solder joints. Acid water can etch heavy metals and the results have been measured in babys' brains. To stop that, the pH of many municipal supplies has been raised to 8 or more, making the ammonium turn into deadly ammonia. [You must have a pH meter or high-range pH kit or you won't even know it happened.]
A variety of formaldehyde-like compounds have been developed to treat chloramines and sequester both the ammonium and the chlorine. For most aquarists, those are the only way to go, as you don't even need to know if it is chlorine or chloramine -- it takes care of either. I like Amquel, but Prime, and Ammo Lock 2 are others I have tested that work well. Amquel Plus is different and I do not suggest you use it.
Fish breeders have a heavy reliance on tiny critters collectively called infusoria. They clear water of free-floating bacteria and are excellent first food for the tinier babies. Unfortunately all the formaldehyde-type dechloraminators kill infusoria as well as bacteria. They even kill bigger things like Daphnia (bad) and Hydra (good).
Activated carbon filtering is one good way to avoid complete reprocessing of all your water. [Some have resorted to 100% RO water with expensive Rift Lake minerals added back in so it can sustain life again.] Filtering slowly through activated carbon is cheaper and easier. You do have to test for chlorine at the outlet to be sure the time-of-contact is adequate.
HTH
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
Ronnie, just keep using the Seachem Prime you are currently using and the critters will be fine. Seachem make good products and you can trust that it will take care of the chloramine issue. Oh, I have sent you the email address of the Executive Chemist of water department...you might want to channel all the issues KL has along with your doubts in the email to the chemist should you feel a need to do so. Basically, I feel the chloramine content is not that heavy in our taps to cause such major mayhems and that a good dechlorinator should do the trick. Don't always blame the tap when your critter bellys up...it is not always the case.
Regards
Peter Gwee :wink:
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