# Reverse Osmosis ( RO ) and Chloramine



## TINNGG (Mar 9, 2005)

My understanding is that RO systems strip the water down to its purist form, which is why it's suggested to add some sort of balancer to it. So, I'd say that there should be no chloramines in RO water.


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## endparenthesis (Jul 13, 2004)

There shouldn't even be chloramines by the time the water gets to the RO membrane... that's true of chlorine anyway. The prefilter is partly designed to remove the chlorine because it will put holes in the membrane and render it crippled or useless. Not totally sure if chloramine does the same.


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## Ktulu_JL (Apr 3, 2006)

Steve,

RO can work in many, many ways.

Wikipedia:
Home brewers use chemicals such as Sodium metabisulfite to remove chloramine from brewing liquor as it, unlike chlorine, cannot be removed by boiling.

From the RO systems that I have seen, 100% of these systems only have "chloramine" cartridges that can reduce somewhat the cloramine levels in the output water.

My city has a jynormous ammount of chloramine in the tap, and the only way that I can deal with it, is to treat a circulating 5-6 gal bucket at a time, or shake 1 gal jugs around periodically. I add SeaChem Prime to this water.

I am sure that there are better ways to deal with this, but RO hasn't worked for my friends.

I tried the dillute things a while ago, and killed a bunch of my friends goldfish. It was a bad time for me....


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## crazie.eddie (May 31, 2004)

Ktulu_JL said:


> My city has a jynormous ammount of chloramine in the tap...


:eek5: 

WOW! That's humogous!!!


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Ktulu_JL said:


> My city has a jynormous amount of chloramine in the tap, and the only way that I can deal with it, is to treat a circulating 5-6 gal


Thanks. My city does to. And I could not find out if I could get the chloramine out with RO. Apparently not, or at least not all of it.

(And thanks for spelling it correctly so I could correct the first post!)


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## medicineman (Sep 28, 2005)

Glad that our tap water here contains only chlorine and no chloramine. I can even use it straight away into the tank without fatal issue.

Now hearing that even RO unit cannot take away those chloramine completely... that spooks me. Now I know how evil it is and it reminds me when I was in Singapore, my goldfish died after a simple water change.... all because it was not rainy season and chloramine became concentrated. That sucks.


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## Brilliant (Apr 11, 2006)

RO membranes do not remove chlorine. Chloramine is a compound of chlorine and ammonia...please correct me if I am wrong.

These need to be removed with the carbon block filter. As said before this is part of the prefilter system before the RO membrane.

Yes it is scary, carbon block filters need to be replaced on schedule.


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Brilliant said:


> Yes it is scary, carbon block filters need to be replaced on schedule.


I'm OK with that. Having a planted tank means there are a number of things that have to happen on a scheduled basis or bad things are going to happen. This is just another one of those items IMO.




Brilliant said:


> These need to be removed with the carbon block filter. As said before this is part of the prefilter system before the RO membrane.


The problem is what was said is that is "_should be_" removed as a part of the prefilter process. Maybe I'm being too picky, but that sounded a bit like "_maybe_". I'm looking for positive confirmation, such as "_is removed_" by the prefilter.

And it sounds like Ktulu_JL has experience with this not working completely, or maybe he had no prefilter.


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## co2 (Sep 13, 2004)

I always assumed that RO filters removed 100% of chloramines, but google'ing it now, I guess they don't. But... most RO filters these days, including the one I had, include DI (de-ionization) filters which should remove 100% chloramines if they are working correctly, although they usually have a lot of prefiltration (carbon) to remove as much chlorine and chloramines as possible before they reach the RO and DI stages since they are damaging to both.

All of the tap water in the SF Bay Area has chloramines, and the reef aquarists use RO/DI filters and no tap water conditioners, they don't have any problems with corals... so the RO/DI filters have to be removing the chloramines.


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## co2 (Sep 13, 2004)

Steve, I am just curious about why you are using RO? I used RO/DI when I was into reefs but I stopped once I got into planted tanks. I do 50% water changes every week and just fill the tank up with tap water and use Seachem Prime to remove the chloramines. I've never had a problem getting shrimp to breed in this water, so it's got to be high quality.


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Craig, I've been working on an automatic water change mechanism for quite a while. Outside of just automating the process, I'd like it to become less noticeable - such as many frequent little changes that equal the effect of one big weekly one. It is more wasteful of water, but if I'm doing the math right, not much more so. 

One of the principal stumbling blocks is the requirement to get the chloramine out of the water. If I was going to do a once a week big 50% change, I could automate that by squirting Prime in, in-line, in the same quantity I use for my 50% changes now. But I would want a peristaltic pump to measure that precise dose. And it so happens that such a pump costs about what a low volume RO unit costs (initially).

So I could get a low volume RO units instead and then be able to do the frequent little changes that I prefer. But that requires confirmation that an RO will take chloramine out.

But Craig, it sounds like you are pretty certain the reefers in SF pretty much confirm that ROs really will do this. Is that right?


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## co2 (Sep 13, 2004)

scolley said:


> Craig, I've been working on an automatic water change mechanism for quite a while. Outside of just automating the process, I'd like it to become less noticeable - such as many frequent little changes that equal the effect of one big weekly one. It is more wasteful of water, but if I'm doing the math right, not much more so.
> 
> One of the principal stumbling blocks is the requirement to get the chloramine out of the water. If I was going to do a once a week big 50% change, I could automate that by squirting Prime in, in-line, in the same quantity I use for my 50% changes now. But I would want a peristaltic pump to measure that precise dose. And it so happens that such a pump costs about what a low volume RO unit costs (initially).
> 
> ...


What I can say with certainty and from personal experience, is that the RO/DI combination will remove chloramines to the extent that the filtered water is safe to use with SPS corals which have to be one of the most sensitive animals you can keep in a tank. What I can't say for sure is if an RO filter without DI will do the job, but I think it would be fine for FW. I had an RO/DI unit from this Ebay store:

http://stores.ebay.com/The-Aqua-Safe-Pure-Water-Shop

ReefCentral.com has a lot of people that are knowledgable about RO since they rely so much on those filters.


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## BlueRam (Sep 21, 2004)

So there is a product for pre-treating water inline:
http://bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=22577;category_id=1755

I would assume that this could be scaled up (pool filter with lots of carbon) and should do the job with scheduled maintenance.


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## crazie.eddie (May 31, 2004)

Yes, RO units should take the chloramines out, but so will it remove everything else. You would then have to dose your tank with other nutrients, especially if you stock fish in there.

What you could do is have a middle container to store water and keep it agitated with a powerhead with a ventura system. This middle container would hold the water that would go into your tank. The float switch would be on your main tank, but the power source would be on a timer to turn on the float switch every 3rd day. So every 3rd day, the timer would turn on the float switch. If the water level was below the limit, it would turn on and pump the water from the middle reservoir into the main tank. It would then stop when the tank was filled to the correct level. The timer would also be set to turn off the device maybe after an hour or 2. 

You would probably also need another float switch in the middle reservoir so that it does not overfill.



BlueRam said:


> So there is a product for pre-treating water inline:
> http://bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=22577;category_id=1755
> 
> I would assume that this could be scaled up (pool filter with lots of carbon) and should do the job with scheduled maintenance.


That unit looks small scale. Continous use, especially going large scare for larger tanks would require more filter changes. Also, it does state how much it claims to clean out, compared to Kent marine RO/DI units that state they claim to remove about 99% of particulates in the water.


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## BlueRam (Sep 21, 2004)

The unit quoted is small scale. However as a proof of principle it shows that inline treatment can be done. In terms of general "filth" tap water is nothing compared to tank water especially particulates. This is a reason the "home or pool" filters are not used with great success as they clog often. Back to tap water though I think that Scolley can rig an inline 5 gal bucket or 55gal drum with pounds of carbon. The water will not be RO pure but it will be chlorine/stinky free. 

BTW the switch from chlorine was made to ensure that the water at the further taps still meets safe drinking standards. However in several places the presence of nitrifying bacteria are able to thrive so the result is water that fails drinking standards for nitrate... 



crazie.eddie said:


> That unit looks small scale. Continous use, especially going large scare for larger tanks would require more filter changes. Also, it does state how much it claims to clean out, compared to Kent marine RO/DI units that state they claim to remove about 99% of particulates in the water.


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Steve, I guess the answer to your question is kind of yes and no. Please keep in mind that I am speaking mostly from personal experience, and that I am in no way an expert. As others have mentioned, chloramine is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. The carbon stage of an RO/DI system will strip the chlorine from the chloramine molecule, leaving the ammonia behind. (Although the carbon probably absorbs a little ammonia, but only a small amount) The chlorine has to be removed to prevent damage to the RO membrane. After this stage, the ammonia laden water will pass through the RO membrane. Unfortunately, much if not most of the Ammonia will pass straight through the membrane. Next comes the DI stage, where the water passes through Deionization resin. This stage will in fact remove the ammonia and other substances, and thus you end up with clean chloramine free water. Now here's were it gets tricky. The DI resin can only absorb so much, and this is primarily dependent on the TDS level of your incoming water. IE, if you live in an area of the country where the TDS is 200, versus another area where TDS might be 800, you can expect the Resin to last perhaps four times as long as the the area with the higher TDS. In my situation we have pretty mucky water in our area, and with a 75gallon per day RO/DI system, I could only produce about 200 - 300 gallons before ammonia started to show up in the end product water. So you kind of have to keep an eye on the DI resin. I had to replace the resin quite often. Eventually I gave up and used Prime to neutralize it. Try sending an email to: [email protected] or [email protected], I'm not sure which one is current.

His name is Randall, and he supplies RO systems to much of the Discus commumity. He will be able to answer any questions you have and can give you some recommendations.

-Jeremiah


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## endparenthesis (Jul 13, 2004)

The inline filter seems like basically an RO unit prefilter... gets rid of the chlorine but doesn't filter out _everything_. Might be more ideal...


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Thanks for the help folks. But I gotta tell ya', this appears to be more complicated than I expected!

I REALLY like the idea of a simple inline filter. That keeps thing simple (and less expensivie), certainly more simple than a whole RO/DI rig. And it eliminates the need for a water storage tank. A major plus.

But from what Jeremiah said, removing the chloramine will leave ammonia. Now I thought plants loved to suck up ammonia - I guess it is a question of how much.

Also the inlines don't seem to say _much about _how much chloramie they remove. Look at the puppy on the top of this page...  looks easy, less expensive, but they'll post numbers like "95–96% of organic impurities" but they won't tell you how much chloramine they remove, just that they remove it (notably not saying 100%).

So maybe this gets back to what Ktulu_JL was saying, it is a question of how much chloramine gets removed???


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## Ktulu_JL (Apr 3, 2006)

Steve,

I am setting up, and have been planning for a while... a 55 gallon tank in my basement that has a powerhead on it that will be circulating Prime treated water for use in my water changes. This water is heated to my perfect temperature, and also has the other stuff in the water that I need. I got a pump that can push the water to all of my tanks. I like this idea because I don't think that I have had to spend any money on it.

I know that many people can make the RO thing work for themselves, and have friends that praise this solution 100% all around. I just can't see purchasing this equipment for your two fish tanks. Your local water must be good enough for use around the house, or you would already be on RO.

I have done the Prime bucket circulation thing for so many years without, yet another big purchase that incures high maintenance as well (the RO system).

I know that most of the local schools around me have found it cheaper to just puchase distilled water for their classes, than to try and maintain a RO or a distiller system. Add up how much it would really cost per year to just outright buy distilled water versus maintaining a RO system once, or to use some other means.

However, you are a high tech guy, and I am a low tech guy on this hobby, so please take this into account....


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

A design consideration causing me to look at RO is space. I'm out of it. I've both seen, and can easily imagine, numerous auto-filling solutions that make use of a reservior of treated water. I just don't have the space for the reservoir. So I'm looking at in-line solutions.

Because I want to do little water changes, not big ones, I don't want to treat the entire volume of tank water with prime. Treating the full tank volume just to add 2 gallons to a 75g tank, and doing it over and over and over, would lead to a whole lot of Prime in the 75g. And I don't even want to contemplate or risk what that might lead to. So that leads me to solutions treating the water before it hits the tank.

So I'm boxed in... it's gotta be a form of pre-treatment, and it's gotta be in-line (reservoir free). As far as I can see, that leaves RO type treatment, some kind of really slow accurate pump (read peristaltic) to inject prime in-line, or possibly charcoal pre-filtration.


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## Brilliant (Apr 11, 2006)

crshadow said:


> Steve, I guess the answer to your question is kind of yes and no. Please keep in mind that I am speaking mostly from personal experience, and that I am in no way an expert. As others have mentioned, chloramine is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. The carbon stage of an RO/DI system will strip the chlorine from the chloramine molecule, leaving the ammonia behind. (Although the carbon probably absorbs a little ammonia, but only a small amount) The chlorine has to be removed to prevent damage to the RO membrane. After this stage, the ammonia laden water will pass through the RO membrane. Unfortunately, much if not most of the Ammonia will pass straight through the membrane. Next comes the DI stage, where the water passes through Deionization resin. This stage will in fact remove the ammonia and other substances, and thus you end up with clean chloramine free water. Now here's were it gets tricky. The DI resin can only absorb so much, and this is primarily dependent on the TDS level of your incoming water. IE, if you live in an area of the country where the TDS is 200, versus another area where TDS might be 800, you can expect the Resin to last perhaps four times as long as the the area with the higher TDS. So you kind of have to keep an eye on the DI resin. I had to replace the resin quite often. Eventually I gave up and used Prime to neutralize it.
> -Jeremiah



roud: 

Ive used my DI resin for four months now and its about time to recharge. I am seeing a slight rise in ppm...it may be my bucket residue because after I washed it out really good I lost 3ppm...so. Mine lasts a long time and is inexpensive. I was going to stop using the DI but what the heck.

If you are losing DI effects its good to shake around the cartridge. Typically the water channels through the DI cartridges making a path through. This is bad...it should be flowing through the entire media contents if possible. Not a little pathway. I also purge the air out of my DI canisters to make this effect more possible.

Check this out.
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=510

When in doubt ask the reefers. Find someone who has chloramines using RO with typical GAC block filter. If the reef is alive then you know its safe for FW. www.reefcentral.com. The folks make me feel sane when it comes to my aquarium source water.

I wish I could tell you but I do believe my water company uses chlorine only, not chloramines.

LOL after reading this I may outfit with three GAC's and use a seperate particle prefilter. LMAO


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## Brilliant (Apr 11, 2006)

After reading a bit more...I think you should use:

Sediment prefilter (1st stage). 
Inline GAC or that extruded carbon block (ECB) (2nd stage). 
My unit was setup with two inline, so use two or more. 
Then RO (3rd stage). 
Then move right to DI canisters (4th stage). 
My unit uses sequencial canisters, again I would use two or more.

You can get a meter to monitor your input and output TDS. My unit produces 0ppm TDS.



PS...I am a high tech guy...maybe..I just try to eliminate adding chemicals like prime


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Brilliant said:


> After reading a bit more...I think you should use:
> 
> Sediment prefilter (1st stage).
> Inline GAC or that extruded carbon block (ECB) (2nd stage).
> ...


Too much tech. I want something simple, or I'm just gonna keep doing manual water changes. 

If I've read this stuff correctly, why not simply:

Sediment prefilter (1st stage). 
Inline Extruded carbon block (ECB) (2nd stage).​
That will leave some ammonia in the water after the process is over, but by using this for small incremental water additions (1-5 gal each), a 75g tank full of plants ought to be able to suck that up and not be overwhelmed.

Also, have been reading the Senske's book, and while they do not mention Chloramine specifically, but Chlorine instead, it appears that is exactly what they do - simple carbon filtration to tap water, then straight into the tank.


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## Brilliant (Apr 11, 2006)

scolley said:


> Too much tech. I want something simple, or I'm just gonna keep doing manual water changes.
> 
> If I've read this stuff correctly, why not simply:
> 
> ...



Well you took the words out of my mouth. I thought you were extremely worried about this and RO/.DI will solve that.

I was going to comeback and question your water changing and how its done because RO would be a terrible waste of water...because it sounds like it would be running constantly.

If your reading things like that then my words are only going to set you back.


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## Brilliant (Apr 11, 2006)

scolley said:


> Too much tech. I want something simple.


LOL I think Ive read your posts before. I should have RAN!!! :hihi: 
:angel:


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

*I was WRONG!*

I don't know why I thought we had Chloramine in my water, but I was wrong! And this is one of those times I LOVE being wrong! It's just chlorine, so all I've got to do is run my tap water through a carbon matrix filter (Extruded carbon block -ECB). That's great... easy setup, good flow rate, no worries about releasing ammonia in the tank!

So my problem is solved, but only because I had a much simpler problem than I thought.


*BUT WHAT IF I REALLY DID HAVE TO TREAT FOR CHLORAMINE?*

I've been digging into this and here is what I've found...

*First*, carbon matrix filters will apparently separate the chlorine and ammonia from chloramine, absorbing the chlorine and passing on some, or most, of the ammonia. You can look here about that. Check out photo 26.

That means you could assemble 2 in-line carbon matrix (ECB) filters, and get reasonable flow (assuming 5 micron filter size - not 1), and get a lot of chloramine out, with some ammonia left over. But apparently the degree to which you get the chloramine out depends on flow rate, as with the ammonia abortion.

*Second*, since straight in-line with low flow reduction is not a solution that takes out everything, the first option seems questionable at best. So you could take a look at something like this as an upgrade to an RO or RO/DI kit. It deals with chloramine by design.

*Third*, and last, you have to consider the vast number of reefers out there that seem to be unconcerned about chlorimine. This indicates to me that like this link indicated, a normal RO/DI unit will indeed remove both the chlorine and ammonia from chloramine, as indicated earlier in this thread.

The downside of these last two options is the reduced flow of a full RO/DI rig - necessitating some form of water storage. Also it it strips out all the nice goodies my water has in it, requiring putting it back in.



So for my simple chlorine-only problem, two in-line carbon matrix filters seems to be just the ticket!roud:


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## cbennett (Oct 20, 2005)

scolley, just be careful as a lot of water companies change back and forth from chlorine to chloramine at different times of the year. Also the amounts they add to the water supply can really increase depending on various factors. When I was more into ponding, I knew a lot of people who killed their fish by assuming their water was always the same. Granted, the water changes are a lot smaller in our aquariums but you may want to have some contingency plans included into your final design.


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## Brilliant (Apr 11, 2006)

I am wondering...how much water are you going to be able to change at once?

My RO/DI unit outputs like 10g in 4 hours. Not that your going to use RO but.. I am having problems changing like 10%. I dont think I would be able to get a sufficient change out of anything less. I am actually getting a larger storage tank...seems to be the opposite of what your doing. Right now I am working on making the RO/DI water more convenient like tap water.


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

cbennett said:


> scolley, just be careful as a lot of water companies change back and forth from chlorine to chloramine at different times of the year.


Thanks. That's really good advice!

But I called the water company today and talked at length about their use of chloramine, and their planned use of chloramine. It appears they don't use it, have never used it, and while they will not tell me they won't ever use it... they checked their municipal reporting requirements and called me back to tell me they are not allowed to switch to it without informing their consumers (by state law).

So it sounds like I am clear. But thanks for the advice.





Brilliant said:


> I am wondering...how much water are you going to be able to change at once?


I want to move to multiple, reasonably short duration, water changes each day. In my tank with a nominal water volume of 68 gallons, that could amount to 7g once a day, or 2g 4 times a day. I'm certain I've got a problem in my math that I need to ferret out, (I'd be happy for someone to check my spreadsheet), but numbers like these come out to around the same or better than 1 50% water change once a week.

Bottom line... I'm willing to waste a bit of water (or more) in order to do the less efficient, but less noticeable, multiple small water changes every day vs. 1 big one every week.


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## BuckeyeFieldSupply (Nov 26, 2005)

For customers with chloramines, we configure a system with two carbon prefilters to maximize residence time. The first is Catalytic GAC - a special fast acting carbon that splits the chloramine into chlorine and ammonia. The next stage, typically a Matrikx Chlorine Guzzler will remove the chlorine - and as noted above, the ammonia is removed by the DI resin.

Russ @ BFS


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Russ - thanks for posting! It's good to have someone jump in that really understands this stuff.

So for chlorine, it sound's like I'm doing the right thing... at the moment I have two stages - a 10 micron carbon block to do a bit of chlorine removal and prefiguration, followed by a 0.5 micron carbon block to do hard core chlorine removal.

And it sounds like you've got a good solution for chlorimine too.

But I must say your prices are better than what I'm paying now. Will give you guys a yell on the next order. Would you suggest anything different than what I'm doing for plain old chlorine removal? Assuming I'm using removable cartridges, and not the in-line filters?


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## Khandurian (Oct 25, 2006)

Well, thats a little weird configuration you got there. Normally what I see recommended is:

1 10 micron sediment filter
1 5 micron carbon block (your choice of favorite style)
1 1 micron carbon block (again, your choice of favorite style)
1 RO membrane (again, your choice of favorite style)
1 DI (I use mixed bed color change works best for me!)

Ok, now heres the story with my water. Get ready to cringe!!

Out of the faucet, 300 PPM of crap! and almost a full blown 3 ppm of chloramine (hard to tell with my kit, it goes from 2 to 4 so you gotta judge it)

Now, if thats not enough to scare you. You have a strong will!

Ok, after my array of filters, coming out the RO side before the DI

28 ppm of crap and somewhere around 2 on the ammonia test kit. 

And of course after the DI its 0 ppm and 0 ammonia

Now with my particular situation, My water comes out PURE! Too pure for fish! I dose with baking soda and Epson salts to bring my water to 3 kh 7.1 ph and somewhere around 80-100 gh. 

My fish have loved me ever since!


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Khandurian said:


> Well, thats a little weird configuration you got there.


Maybe it was not clear from the previous posts in the thread. All I'm trying to remove is chlorine. I'm not interested in removing anything else.

Whether or not other things SHOULD be removed is a great topic. But I'd like to keep this thread focused on HOW to remove chlorine or chlorimine.


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## Khandurian (Oct 25, 2006)

Well, I posted my configuration to show you how I was able to get rid of my chloramines. I tried every configuration that I could think of.

At one point I had 4 carbon block's but found that the only true way to remove the chloramines was using DI chambers. 

You could try just using only a DI chamber, however it gets to be very expensive to replace the chamber as it is doing all the work and do not last very long at all. In fact a standard 10" mixed bed only lasted about 150 gallons of water. But when you use everything else, it lasts about 600 gallons.

If you do find a combination of carbons that will remove the chloramines I would give it a try. However, I could not find any combination that would do it without having everything else removed as well.


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Khandurian said:


> Well, thats a little weird configuration you got there.


OK. I appreciate that you are posting what worked for you. Cool. And thanks.

But I still would like to understand why my simple configuration is wierd, when its purpose is only to remove chlorine. Unless I'm missing something, its all that is needed.


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## Khandurian (Oct 25, 2006)

It's weird cause I miss read what you were trying to get rid of. I read chloramine not chlorine. My brain does that some times. 

Ok, now that my brain is on the right track, your running 2 carbon into the RO correct? If so, you probably still have some left after the RO? 

Ok, after the RO, if you still have some new carbon blocks, add 2 more after the RO. This should clean up the rest of the chlorine, and possibly clean up the remaining ammonia as well. 

I tried this configuration but it did not work for me due to my starting numbers are way too high. It might work work if your numbers are lower.


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Cool. Thanks. Please don't over complicate this... there is NO RO. I don't need/want it. Just chlorine removal.

So the setup is astoundingly simple:

Tap -> 10 Micron Carbon Block -> 0.5 Micron Carbon Block -> Tank​
By everything I can get my hands on, 1 carbon block can be enough to remove enough chlorine such that the fish don't care. Two in-line carbon blocks as I have appears to be potential overkill for most simple chlorine removal applications.

In my particular case, I am really lucky because out of the tap my chlorine is only something like 0.2 ppm anyway. So if these two carbon blocks ONLY remove 90% of my chlorine, that still gets me down to 0.02 ppm. Mixing that into my tank water takes the total concentration down to less than 0.01 ppm.


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## xzzap (Sep 5, 2005)

nowhere i've seen says RO removes chloramines


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

xzzap said:


> nowhere i've seen says RO removes chloramines


I don't think anyone has said that have they?

Carbon breaks the chlorimine down into chlorine and ammonia. Then the carbon removes the chlorine, and the RO (or the DI, I don't know which) removes the ammonia. Or at least that's how I understand it.


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## Khandurian (Oct 25, 2006)

Wow! you really have some low numbers. I'm extremely jealous!! 

In your case, I would just add a 3rd carbon then. If I was living there, I would choose the following.

1 10 micron pre-filter (I'm just big on pre-filters and they prolong the carbon blocks!)
1 5 micron carbon
1 1 micron carbon
1 .5 micron carbon 

I think this is all you would need. You may notice that your carbon blocks will last longer with the pre-filter. As I said, I'm reall big on pre-filters. You can never be too careful.

Oh just to add to your last post, the DI removes what ever is left. The RO membrane will pass the ammonia. (In my test results anyways)

Edit: I forgot to add, is pressure an issue? You will loose 2-4 psi after squeezing water through 3 carbon blocks.


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Khandurian said:


> Wow! you really have some low numbers. I'm extremely jealous!!


I'm really quite fortunate. I feel guilty my water is so good. Low chlorine, no chlorimine, KH 1.75, GH 3, pH 7.1, and just enough N and P in it that you don't have to fertilized it in a low light tank. It's killer planted tank water.

I'll look at adding a 3rd carbon filter, something between the 10 micron carbon and the 0.5 micron carbon. FWIW though, starting the process with a 10 micron carbon block was intended to do double duty... act as a prefilter, and also remove chlorine.

And as to the filter life question, I spoke directly to the tech support people at Kent, trying to engage in a conversation related to the rated filter life based on the number of gallons filtered. And to my disappointment, they took a hard line on filter life. They said even if you have not passed the rated number of gallons for a filter, it must be changed every 6 months anyway.

But given what filters cost, maybe it would be worth the investment to buy a quality test kit to check chlorine. It would sure be nice to not have to replace filters is they were still doing the job.

And yes, pressure could be an issue. It affects the speed at which I can add water back to the tank. That speed is currently being throttled by either the friction of the very long run of 1/4" tubing to the tank, or the 1/8" ID opening of my solenoid controlling the water flow. Not sure which. So I can't really be sure if adding a 3rd filter would have an impact until I try.


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