Folks, the recent experience of chloramine fatalities to A. amoenum Sakbayeme fry warrant a separate thread for discussion.
Many SG hobbyists, myself included, have been complacent towards water treatment. In pre-chloramine days, it's simple to aerate and age the water for a couple of days for 'sensitive' fishes, which would have sufficed in dissipating chlorine.
With re-constituted Newater and having chloramine replacing chlorine, at higher concentration presently added into our system, I am concerned about adding more 'dechloraminators' that would turn my fish water into chemical soup.
Wright can suggest a better thread title if he so wishes but the urgency to understand and take appropriate steps remain the same.
[PS: Let me try and shift relevant posts into this thread first]
No can do...
Kho, how do I move the following selected posts to 'join' this thread?
http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtop...?p=11171#11171
http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtop...?p=11173#11173
http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtop...?p=11176#11176
http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtop...?p=11177#11177
http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtop...?p=11181#11181
http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtop...?p=11185#11185
http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtop...?p=11206#11206
http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtop...?p=11219#11219
... including subsequent post pertaining to chloramine. Thanks.
I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
Ronnie Lee
Ron,
How sure are you that the real cause is due to chloramine in the water? Have you tested the water using the chlorine test kit (which Wright recommended) to also test for chloramine? I've tested previously the water coming out from my tap and it is zero - though our supply are coming from different waterworks. So, nowadays, I normally do water changes direct from the tap - also no place to store aged water.
Zulkifli
Ronnie et al,
You might check with the bars in SG (I know you have them because I've
gotten more than a little tipsy in a fewand see who does maintenance
on their ice machines. Betcha you could get these inline carbon filters from
whoever does service on their machines
Thanks Ron,
I'll now go back to my precious tome that NS scrapped in the wee hours of this morning. :wink: Of course I have forgotten all the good points I made in that one. :^)
Many US aquarists were at least as casual as you in SG about water treatment. "It always worked for me, before," became a sad lament that I heard all too often five or six years ago.
Much US water supply has such low bacteria counts that no chlorine is needed at all. That's neat!
Here around Bishop, only one well out of many in the area shows enough coliform bacteria to ever require chlorine. [Unfortunately, I don't know the exact part of town that it serves, so all I can say is "test." AFAIK, chloramines are not used here at all.]
My water is nearly perfect, containing enough Ca and Mg to sustain life (50 ppm) enough other minerals to be healthy (total dissolved solids 85-89 ppm) and higher than acceptable iron which stains the toilet scale but makes plants thrive (300 ppb). The big problem with iron is that it is a flavor amplifier, so can influence drinking water taste and cooking in some ways. I have no chlorine, but it could give an awful taste with that much iron present.
I can add a bit of salt to a Notho tank without poisoning them. Down town the 30 ppm water is too soft for life, and any added sodium tends to be lethal without adding potassium (aka "No Salt") for proper cell metabolism. My local well is a few units down and just across the driveway from my home. Not much happens there that I can't monitor.
Historically, the testing for bacteria and use of chlorine in 1st-world countries eliminated the travelers' diseases and made the water safe for all tourists.
Mature water distribution systems always have some buildup of organic debris. When I was at Hewlett Packard's Corporate Research Labs we couldn't even keep it out of our 20 MegOhm DI water lines! Frustrating when trying to make state-of-the-art semiconductors!
Chlorine combines with those organics to produce a class of chemicals called trihalomethanes. A familiar one was once used as an anaesthetic -- chloroform. Unfortunately, they were found to cause cancer, so a solution was needed. First we need to back up a few years.
Years ago, folks in the US midwest found that agriculture runoff, containing ammonium from fertilizers (and cow pee?), combined with chlorine in the water to make a much more stable group of compounds called chloramines. Overnight aeration did not remove the compounds and they really killed or made fish sick. John F. Kuhns, of Missouri, investigated the problem and ended up patenting a compound, much like formaldehyde, that neutralized the chlorine just as well as the old photographer's hypo (sodium thiosulfate) but also tied up the ammonium. He licensed his patent to Novalek (Kordon) and they marketed it under their trade name of "Amquel." It was great as the ammonium was still available to the plants or biofilter, but didn't burn the gills by turning to ammonia.
This was particularly vital to the fish farms all down the Mississippi River, but ornamental aquaria got the benefits, too. When the Environmental Protection Agency discovered the problems with trihalomethanes, they looked around and found that aquaculture had been dealing with chloramines for years and that there was a lot of knowledge available.
In addition to stabilizing the chlorine so it wasn't gone in a day or two, converting it to chloramine stopped formation of trihalomethanes without slowing its antibacterial properties at all. Eureka! The best of all worlds (if you aren't a fish or shrimp).
EPA quickly mandated that all municipal water supplies, starting with the largest ones, should convert to chloramines from chlorine only. It was cheap and easy. Add some bleach and add some ammonium, and the water was safe, again.
Many older homes in the US used all copper pipes, with solder joints of lead/tin, and the etching of the heavy metals was detected in the blood of children exposed. By requiring the use of ammonium hydroxide to raise pH to 9 or 10 they stopped the heavy-metal toxins cold. [They may use lye (sodium hydroxide) in some places where ammonium isn't needed.] This mandate was, again, a very user friendly but fish-damaging change in the water treatment.
In my area, San Jose was the first district to switch to chloramines. I lived in the next town north, Santa Clara, and received hard well water with neither chlorine nor chloramine, normally. Most of the towns north of me had local wells but bought a lot of San Francisco water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierras. The latter water was very soft and had no additives of any kind, as it was bacteria free. [SF finally had to add chloramines, just starting this year.]
The elements were in place for three or four years of running catastrophe. No matter how they tried, San Jose's water got mixed with both our Santa Clara water and the Hetch Hetchy water in towns all up the peninsula.
Early massive fish losses in the local fish stores of San Jose were eventually handled (mostly by "Amquel"), but none of us were really prepared to deal with the problem in our own fishrooms.
During a drought in the mid '90s, Hetch Hetchy water was getting too turbid as they drew the water level closer to the mud. The solution was to send it to the big reservoirs around San Jose for settling, and then the water district ran it through huge RO filters in Santa Clara's industrial park to get the hardness back down where it was expected to be. That process wiped out a bunch of my fish, because they moved the water, very late at night, through a main that was about 1/4 mile from my house. It backed up into our well distribution system and I unknowingly changed water with heavily chloraminated San Jose water.
The city was grateful to me for pointing out the problem as that gave them another data point on where the contamination could spread. It did not, however, resuscitate a single one of my dead fish.
About that time, folks from Palo Alto to Belmont were reporting that their killies had suddenly become sterile. It turns out that the SF water processed from San Jose was being rechloraminated after the RO filtering and sent up the peninsula to the SF reservoirs at Crystal Springs. The level was mostly low and it didn't kill as much as it caused temporary sterility and eggs were going bad like crazy. We had one West Coast Weekend Show and Convention in Palo Alto, tho, where the mortality rate of fish exposed to local water was over 90%. It was carefully covered up, but I did the follow-up survey and know it happened. The show water was carefully blended and conditioned, but no one knew it was loaded with about 1 ppm of chloramines as it was San Jose water and not the Hetch Hetchy water usually available in Palo Alto.
Betta owners are prone to do 100% water changes, so misuse of chlorine removers was made very evident when chloramine showed up. The burst of ammonia released when the hypo "broke the chlorine-ammonium bond" was quite lethal when combined with the high pH that EPA was also mandating. There is 50X more deadly ammonia at pH 9 than at 7. At pH of 6.5 and below, it all stays as the relatively harmless ammonium ions (NH4+).
Two of the International Betta Congress's Grand Champions were totally wiped out when they failed to change the kind of conditioner they were using as their water was changed from chlorine to chloramine. Both of them lost many thousands of dollars worth of champion breeding stock as well as their next generation of young fish.
How do you handle this problem?
First of all, you are operating blind if you do not test. Chlorine tests are simple to use and very cheap at the pool and spa store. They are pretty costly at the LFS, but we do need to support those guys, so it is your call.
From the above narrative, you can see that predicting what the water service will do to you is too uncertain to risk your fish. Test, test, and test some more. Don't do any water additions or changes without checking for chlorine.
Don't test for ammonia as the kits are too insensitive (250 ppb least step vs 5 ppb damage threshold). The Nessler's reagent ones read positive for ammonia even if you use "Amquel" and they contain mercury which is a brute to dispose of safely. Salicylate tests are too slow and expensive and are no more sensitive than the others.
There is nothing wrong with using "Amquel" (or "Prime" or "Ammo Lock 2") to neutralize the bad effects of chloramine. BTW, "Amquel2" is not the same stuff, so avoid it. The primary downside is for active breeders who need to maintain infusoria cultures. I have even used "Amquel" to kill a hydra outbreak when I ran out of formaldehyde.
They do kill small inverts and infusoria, so I prefer to use an in-line carbon block filter (known at your plumber's as a "Taste and Odor" filter) to strip the chloramine off of all incoming water before it ever gets to a tank.
Since Singapore is like Silicon Valley -- East, you can find great bargains at the industrial surplus houses, I'm sure. Carbon filters are heavily used in all kinds of high-tech manufacturing processes. While a new filter housing and cartridge might cost me US$35 at Home Depot, I could always find good used ones for a couple of dollars at the surplus places. Taste and Odor filter kits for ice-makers are about US$15, here, and include tubing and a saddle tap for the cold water pipe under your sink.
In a recent thread on killietalk, Lee Harper described building his own carbon filters for the flow-through water system he recently built. He made them so huge that they worked with the industrial carbon he could buy, so I will not say you cannot make a DIY filter system. I'm too cheap, and have thus always used surplus "bargains."
My experience with LFS carbon products has been nearly all negative, unfortunately. I'm sure a filter full of Ammo-Carb chips would be a lot better than nothing if you were silly enough to try to use an old-fashioned dechlorinator and released a massive dose of ammonia. IDK why one would do that, knowing that de-chlor products, like "Novaqua" are so deadly.
HTH
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
Ronnie,
look what I found :
http://www.gfsfilter.com.sg/culligan.htm - Do look through all the pages.
Now this is the ultimate for your killies condo : http://pachome2.pacific.net.sg/~tankahcheong/s200.htm
Zulkifli
Ron,
In the "A series of Diana Walstad-styled setups" thread is some useful info about SG water, Wright's carbon filter, etc.
I've often been asked how you can tell if you have chloramine or only chlorine. They both test the same, but handling has important differences.
Basically, it is pretty simple. If your water tests positive for chlorine, aerate a sample for about 24 hours. Test again. The amount of "chlorine" indicated in the second test will be a fairly direct measure of the amount of chloramine in that water. If none shows, it was just chlorine, originally.
Hypochlorite easily breaks down and is released to the air as chlorine gas. Some water departments start with chlorine gas and others use bleach (sodium hypochlorite).
The chlorine in chloramine forms a much tighter bond with the ammonium, and doesn't easily break down, even when vigorously agitated.
BTW, I have found it vital to have a very white material behind the test tube or it is easy to miss the faint yellowish tint that can be a level very harmful to eggs and babies. Glossy white paper or a white refrigerator can make the reading more sensitive by quite a bit.
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
Wright, should I someday be honoured as Editor-in-Chief of a reputable fish magazine, I’ll appoint you Chief columnist
But seriously, wouldn’t Tetra anti-Chlorine/ Chloramine alone be effective enough in dealing with Chloramine? From the product description itself, it should. One would expect a big boy like Tetra to have conducted all the necessary lab tests to verify the efficacy of the product before marketing it. Based on the responses to my posts on cloudy water and filter bacteria survival at a couple of forums, I got myself a bottle of Tetra anti-Chlorine/ Chloramine (1000 ml, biggest btl at SGD$26) just a forth night ago. I should point out that this water conditioner is a tad more expensive than the one that says, “treats Chlorine only” (Tetra anti-Chlorine), which is about 5 bucks cheaper.
Yet, I’ve not seen any improvement in water clarity since using this conditioner. But wait... maybe it’s because I’m using an old solution stock, which might have lost its astringency. I’ve not started to use the newly-purchased bottle you see, as I’m still trying to finish up an old bottle (of the same product) that I'd bought 2 yrs back. I don’t see any use-by date and so I presume it still has its goodness. So, I can’t really say for sure if it’s effective or not. Perhaps Tetra has come up with an improved solution stock. I will start using the new bottle this weekend and see if there’s any difference. Of course, there’s also the question of how you do it – whether you first treat the top-up portion of the water in a barrel and allow time for conditioner-chloramines interaction before adding it to the tank (ideally speaking), or topping up direct into the tank and then mixing in the conditioner (in reality, for lack of storage space), which begs the question of the lag-time factor in chloramine breakdown (and their effect on filter bacteria).
I looked up the PUB web pages, but there was nothing there that said they’ve ratcheted up chloramines level (I might have missed it?). I see that they lump chlorine and chloramine together in their data sheet so one can never be sure. I’m quite certain PUB is cognizant of the fact that the nation’s multi-million ornamental fish trade hinges on their water quality even if they do not care two hoots about we local hobbyists. The concern is, do they have fish experts in their advisory panel who are knowledgeable about what constitute fish-friendly water?Originally Posted by RonWill
Could our fish troubles be attributed to Newater? Not likely. We all know that Newater has started to run in our taps and its proportion is being gradually increased. Expectedly, more aggressive water treatment, like the use of chloramine, would have to be employed in creating Newater from recycled waste water. However, you guys may recall that when Newater made its debut, it was declared as safe for fish and animal life as well as for human consumption. This has been the conclusion of a 2-year long (if I remember correctly) controlled laboratory studies carried out by Newater experts in collaboration with the National Univ. of Singapore. Dr Leslie Retnam, a former colleague, was one of the collaborators. Of course, I could give him a call to get more details, but I hate to bother friends with trivialities. When I go as far as making a phone call, it is often to say serious things like “you’ve committed a serious crime” or “you fabricated an entire crap paper”
So, unless we have more precise data, local hobbyists can only assume that increased level of chloramine is the cause of their problems with cyclical cloudy water and mysterious fish deaths? In my case, the water column usually clears up by Friday... and because I change water on Sundays, I only get to behold crystal clear water for a day or 2 before it’s time again for a water change and damn it, another round of cloudy water. Beats me!
I’m heavily dependent on my eyeballs and olfactory power in maintaining fish-friendly water conditions throughout the week. I would like to give "evolution" a chance to work on my senses!
That is a very bad way to go with most of what is being done in modern water treatment.I’m heavily dependent on my eyeballs and olfactory power in maintaining fish-friendly water conditions throughout the week. I would like to give "evolution" a chance to work on my senses!
[As far as evolution is concerned, why do I immediately think of the "Dodo?"]
Cloudiness and chlorine/chloramine issues are uncorrelated. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other, AFAIK. A flocculant or better filter media may be needed for restoring clarity to turbid tap water. Sometimes settling for a few days in a big barrel helps.
You did not mention once how many ppm your chlorine tests revealed. That is the one and only tool you have to deal with chlorine and chloramine. Looks and smell are useless tools, there.
If you have a lot of iron in your water, you may be able to taste or smell the chlorine gas that is being released at 1 ppm or above. You probably can't even taste the chloramine, due to its improved stability.
It has been a long time since I have tended to trust Tetra products. They mislead on their labels, and were one of the worst that I experienced with probable poor QC allowing bad bloodworms to be sold in the US. YMMV, but I do tend to have a low opinion of them.
Because Kuhns patented the most stable of the ammonia-sequestering products, "Amquel" tends to have a pretty good shelf life. He claims he rejected the ones used in other products because they deteriorated in storage.
I experienced great odor increase in older bottles of "Prime" but they argued that was because it was so concentrated. Yeah. Sure.
Since all are formaldehyde-like compounds, and those are notoriously unstable, I am inclined to trust the simple chlorine test to be certain they are working.
Another anecdote I left out, above, was a friend bought a bottle of 'Amquel" at a major pet chain that didn't work. Someone at the store was probably stealing the contents and replacing with water. I tested it, and my bottle, against water with known chloramine. Mine did neutralize it but his did nothing more than act like plain water. When he notified Kordon that something "fishy" was going on at one of their larger retailers, they sicked their lawyers on him and treated him like a criminal.
He told me J. F. Kuhns treated him even more savagely. That's sad.
Never trust any water report for factors as quickly changeable as chlorine/chloramine dosage. A high bacteria count will result in a massive increase in dosage long before they report it. Use your chlorine test kit all the time, to be safe.
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
Wright, I don’t think the problem is due to the presence of particulate matters or impurities. We’re an affluent society and our water resource is among the best in the world. We have clean and crystal clear water flowing from our taps, so clean that one can drink direct. Definitely not the old-fashioned water folks used to draw from turbid kampung wells once upon a time.
I forgot to mention that my tank water would be crystal clear throughout the day after a 50% water change. Cloudiness almost always appears only the next day. The time delay seems to suggest there’s some kind of bacterial bloom behind the cloudiness. A lab culture (before and post-water change and after cloudiness appeared) would I think be able to shed light on this. I'm sure such info can be found in the aquarium literature.
Damfino what's happening, Mike.
Sure sounds like new-tank syndrome, which I guess 50% changes can cause. I rarely change that much at one time to reduce chances of stress, so am not sure.
I still doubt that it has anything directly to do with chloramine.
What are you using to neutralize it?
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
Like I’ve said before, I always turn off the powerhead for at least an hr when doing routine maintenance/ water change. I’m more and more inclined these days to believe that my experience with cyclical bouts of cloudiness is due to bacterial bloom, not particulate impurities. What continues to befuddle me is the cause of the filter bacteria death - is it caused by a supposed increase in the level of chlorine/ chloramines in our tap water, or is it due to asphyxiation from filter shut down? We’ve discussed asphyxiation before and a number of long-time hobbyists like yourself do not believe so. If it’s neither due to chlorine/ chloramines nor asphyxiation, what the heck is it due to then?
Why didn't I think of that! Yeah, that's a plausible explanation. Maybe I'm freakingly over-zealous in providing fish-friendly water conditions for my fish, but 50% is what I'm comfortable with given the amount of rotting debris in there.
What are you using to neutralize it?I have only TetraSafe anti-Chlorine/ Chloramine.Is there still hope?? Whatever, I’ll have to try the new bottle to find out if it helps.
[As far as evolution is concerned, why do I immediately think of the "Dodo?"
Hey, there’s a bone in that line. Gotcha! You’re making a loud statement after all the lurking and perfect self-control, huh?
Naah. Was afraid it might be taken that way. I just meant that some tests of evolutionary adaptation don't work worth a darn.[As far as evolution is concerned, why do I immediately think of the "Dodo?"
Hey, there’s a bone in that line. Gotcha! You’re making a loud statement after all the lurking and perfect self-control, huh?
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
At the risk of drawing flak, I’ll say this: I sometimes wish there’s a wider base of local hobbyists here... and that people were more forthcoming in responding to an important a topic as this, which is, to use a homo sapiens metaphor, bread-and-butter issue to the fish. Only when there’s enough sample size can we make some meaningful sense as to whether there’s really such a thing as pre- or post-chloramine era... whether we indeed have a systemic problem at hand or one that is isolated to individual hobbyists who are not doing certain things correctly.
How many of us are suddenly facing problems with cyclical cloudy water and inexplicable fish deaths these days? Were there similar problems before? Maybe a poll would help. There's got be a gathering of information phase and if some lead (if there’s really a chloramine overdose) and numbers do come out of it, we could perhaps feed these back to the Public Utilities Board.
Since I took up this hobby, maybe about 2 yrs ago, I've yet to encounter cloudy water - maybe except the time when my main 4ft tank was on the onset of green water. Everytime I changed water, I will just add direct from the tap. My other tanks housing my killies also get the same treatment - 50% water change direct from the tap. In this case, the killies tank only has at most an undergravel filter or a sponge filter.
Maybe the key is to plant heavily? Then again, my killies tank only has java moss and some java ferns floating around in the tank. And as I mentioned before, I cannot detect any chlorine in the tapwater.
Zulkifli
Guys, I’m talking about a very faint cloudiness.
It helps to have a “cloudiness scale” so we have a reference point, even if it’s a crude one. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say my problem borders on 2 a day after a 50& water change. It usually drops to 1 by Thursday... and by late Friday/ Sat, any residual traces of cloudiness would be gone and I have a crystal tank. I say again the problem is cyclical.
I suspect alot hobbyists aren’t very particular with water clarity. Or maybe my senses are so "highly evolved" that I’m able to see what others can’t.
Maybe we should relook and make a mental picture of our beautiful tank before doing a water change and compare this with what we see a day or 2 after. :wink:
I think this should be the correct thread to post this. There are a few post in the "Back to Basics" tank thread so I'm not sure if we want to consolidate all the posts here.
Anyway, after reading the posts on chloramine and Wright's method, I've decided to go ahead and built a chloramine filter based on Wright's design (Wright, I hope it's not patented
I will be using a water filter housing, replacing the ordinary sediment capture block with a carbon block. If I read Wright's posts, he tests the water frequently for chlorine/chloramine in between his two filters. Thus the placement of the 3-way valve. Any comments on the design?
Wright, I saw two type of carbon blocks - 5 micron and 0.5 micron. Does this have any effect in the filtration process? How often do you test for chlorine?
Zulkifli
It looks like my old system in Fremont, except that a valve in front of the whole system (or, better, in the outlet) is needed to slow the water flow for proper time of contact. If you try to rush water through the filters, the chloramine will come right through. The difference between 5 micron and 0.5 microns may well be how fast you can run it. Testing could tell that. It could just be the particle sizes allowed through.
I tested for chlorine pretty infrequently, once I was familiar with the process. Maybe once a month, or maybe a bit more often if I had used an extra large amount of water on an old cartridge. As I said elsewhere, the front cartridge lasted about 6 months for me. Missing the punch through for a few weeks didn't overload the second filter. Fremont kept the chloramine level down around 1-2 ppm or lower. In Los Angeles, where they go over 3 ppm, sometimes, it should be more often, I suspect.
Wright
01 760 872-3995
805 Valley West Circle
Bishop, CA 93514 USA
Folks,
Our administrator, Kho, alerted me to an advertisment in another forum and following-up on it, got the seller to rig this up; a 3-module set with 1x sediment & 2x 5micron carbon cartridge. (His ad was for a 2-module set)
I've yet to get my chlorine/chloramine test kit but here's what the thingie looks like.
Rest of the pics in this album
Come this weekend, I'll see how to mount the set to the main rack.
I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
Ronnie Lee
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks