County's treating my water with chloramine, should I not use it? Am suspecting it's hurting them..

SU2

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They look less healthy as the length of day shortens. That dose to clean pipes is healthy and of value. Bottom line is if you can drink it so can your plants...

If you are worried about it anyways fill water containers with it and let is air off for 24 hours. If you are really concerned toss an inline filter for the house BUT be aware that you should let it run without the filter at changing for a few days so your household piping gets treated proper.

Crystal is a Water and Waste Water Engineer here in PA - that amount is within regulation and safe - it also improves your water quality at the tap.

Grimmy

Thanks, that's very reassuring I really appreciate it!! It absolutely could be (sounds like "surely is" the shortened photoperiod as we get into fall here, I guess that, with the temps still being >80deg every day, I thought they'd hardly slow-down :p ) This is my first fall with bonsai trees, I basically got into this a year ago and it was just a nasty trial&error mess at that point, didn't really start collecting anything worthwhile til ~2/3yr ago, so definitely unsure what to be expecting as winter comes!


Off-topic, but would the decreased sunlight explain why my (and my neighbors') crape myrtles are exhibiting so much brown spots on their foliage? At first I thought something was wrong with mine, til I noticed it in landscape Crapes all over my area!
 

SU2

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They look less healthy as the length of day shortens. That dose to clean pipes is healthy and of value. Bottom line is if you can drink it so can your plants...

If you are worried about it anyways fill water containers with it and let is air off for 24 hours. If you are really concerned toss an inline filter for the house BUT be aware that you should let it run without the filter at changing for a few days so your household piping gets treated proper.

Crystal is a Water and Waste Water Engineer here in PA - that amount is within regulation and safe - it also improves your water quality at the tap.

Grimmy
What do you think of the 2nd comment in this thread, where the person says that using the tap killed their trees?
 

SU2

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@SU2 My best bud works at our water treatment plant and I'm playing disc golf with him tomorrow. I will follow up on that for you, but I remember discussing this in the past with regards to concern about my fish tanks and was told either don't worry or let the water sit out over night. If you really wanted to go nuts you could look at commercially available de-chlorinators for fish tanks. Seachem Prime is what I use for my planted tanks, but I feel that's overkill here. PS most don't deal with chloramine so you would need to look carefully

Thanks a ton, very appreciated :D And re fish, for freshwater I wouldn't worry but marine I would never consider it (particularly if there were corals/invertebrates, particularly sensitive here!) Definitely not worth dechlorinating it chemically, as you say it'd be a search for a chloramine (not chlorine) product and at this point I'm <2wks from them stopping the treatment, would be far simpler to just switch entirely to bottled water (I got a few gallons yesterday and quickly realized how much water I use, and how impractical it is getting gallons like that!!! Duh! So have been doing the overnight gas-off approach, filling a 10gal reservoir at night when closing-up the garden!)
 

SU2

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Mine too! Fishing buddy!

He gave me three rain barrels. Complete with debris net, gutter section, overflow and spigot.

@SU2 the municipalities give them away for free...
With the sinkholes in Florida.....
I figure they WANT you to collect rainwater!

Clean your gutters!

You can throw some charcoal in the debris net as a filter if you need.

Rain better all day!

Cuz...just because we CAN drink it....
Doesn't mean we SHOULD!

Think Flint!

Sorce


Wait- FREE?! A quick google shows that a town next to me, and a county next to me, do in fact do this! I can't find anything for my town/county (have only done a quick search, will be looking harder!) but thanks I'm betting that if I'm not offered a free one, that I can get someone from one of the free areas to help me (I know someone in the next town where they give them for free - I wonder if they come and install or they still 'own' it like they're loaning them, or if they just drop it off and that's that?)

Re cleaning gutters, meh it's such a PITA and with the amount of trees I have adjacent to my house there's just always going to be a re-accumulation unless I made it a routine thing, which I wouldn't do it just wouldn't be a practical/efficient/cost-effective way of getting water for my trees but I have no issue using the water I'd collect with a rain barrel on everything-but my trees! Hell, I've already got a bucket setup under my HVAC's evap-drainline, and use that (probably bad/gross!) water on landscape plants :)

And yeah Flint is a startling example of how bad things can be, you should never rely entirely on 'officially designated as safe'!
 

SU2

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Chloramine takes days to evaporate. It's much more stable than chlorine. If you fill a big tank with it you should be able to use it after a week??
Can you source this? It's not that I doubt you it's just that "overnight" is the only reco I've ever heard (though I've never seen someone demonstrate / explain how overnight is sufficient either!)

"much more stable than chlorine" That's interesting to hear, my understanding was that you'd prefer your county to use chloramine because, unlike chlorine, chloramine *will* gas-off - that seems counter to what you're saying but my chemistry knowledge isn't that great!
 

GrimLore

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What do you think of the 2nd comment in this thread, where the person says that using the tap killed their trees?

I think I know enough people that live there to say this - I think his tap water was not properly treated if it was caused by the water ;)

Grimmy
 
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Chloramine is basically an ammonia molecule bound to a chlorine atom. It is a strong oxidizing agent that is more stable in water than straight chlorine (introduced via chlorination).

Because most bonsai soil is high in organic matter (compared to the level of organics in drinking water), the small amount of chloramine in your city water would probably not be sufficient to harm a bonsai - because the chloramine almost instantly decomposes upon contact with organic matter. However in rare cases when a plant is being grown in completely inorganic media, and the watering rate is high, chloramines might impact a plant's roots. That is a pretty big "might". The EPA limits chloramine concentration in drinking water to no more than 4 ppm.

In other more delicate applications (like koi ponds or aquariums) water that contains chloramine must be chemically treated prior to use - in most cases with sodium thiosulfate - or it will oxidize fish gill membranes.

Chloriamine will naturally evaporate from a standing body of water but it takes about 15 times as long as standard chlorine to do so.
 
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Beer brewers use campden tablets to neutralize chloramine in tap water as it does not readily evaporate and can contribute to band-aid or plastic off flavors in the finished product. Campden tablets are pretty cheap and can neutralize ~20 gallons depending on the levels of chloramine.
 

MichaelS

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Can you source this? It's not that I doubt you it's just that "overnight" is the only reco I've ever heard (though I've never seen someone demonstrate / explain how overnight is sufficient either!)

"much more stable than chlorine" That's interesting to hear, my understanding was that you'd prefer your county to use chloramine because, unlike chlorine, chloramine *will* gas-off - that seems counter to what you're saying but my chemistry knowledge isn't that great!
I don't know much about chloramine. I do know that an orchid grower was pretty upset that it was being used. Chlorine evaporates from the water quite quickly - maybe a day or so. According to this discussion chloramine can take weeks to evaporate or breakdown? Thank god we don't use it down here...yet. Apparently there are other chemical ways to remove it.
https://www.aquariacentral.com/foru...t-really-take-chloramine-to-dissipate.248495/
 

Anthony

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Rainwater, if you are near the sea, and you have had dry weather, has to allowed
to fall and wash off the sea blast a few times, before collecting.

Rainwater, other than above, hopefully you are also clear of industrial stuff,
can be collected in 400 gallon barrels/tanks and left to settle.
Then transferred to another tank.

We use rainwater, and the tank is also connected to the local water supply.

But we use close to 1000 lbs of water [ 100 gallons ] daily in the dry season
for the trees.
So if you are using a great deal of water, get 2 large tanks say 400 gallons each,
leave in the sun and change the covers to a mesh and let one tank stand as the
other is used.

The chlorine effect will disappear and the mesh rids you of mosquitoes.
Good Luck
Good Day
Anthony
 

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Beer brewers use campden tablets to neutralize chloramine in tap water as it does not readily evaporate and can contribute to band-aid or plastic off flavors in the finished product. Campden tablets are pretty cheap and can neutralize ~20 gallons depending on the levels of chloramine.

Sodium thiosulfate and sodium metabisulfite (Campden tablets) are closely related chemicals whose function as it relates to chloramine is almost identical.
 
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