How bad is ammonia from tap water?

[SmokeyBear88]

Im trying to find out how bad ammonia in tap water is to organic soil. I have something for removing chlorine but Im not sure what to do about ammonia or what the acceptable level would be. Im mixing up my first batch of soil later today and this is the last thing I need to figure out.

 

[bobrown14]

Filter it with the minimum charcoal filter.. for chlorine all you need to do is let the water sit out in a bucket over night.

Is the source of your water well or public??

 

[Vegan4life]

I see this is a old thread but I will give input any ways... Some municipalities use "chloromines" to treat potable water. Chloromines are derivatives of amonia. I would not want to consume and would not want to feed it to my plants. You can buy a chloramine filter on Amazon. I use one with my 5 stage RO filter. It definately extends the life of my RO membrane where a carbon block filter will not. Carbon block filters will remove chlorine but not chloromines. I use both.

 

[Gaffle]

I've only used tap water, 2 years straight. I reuse milk jugs for water storage. Once emptied I refill and let sit. My growing medium is living soil and no problems have ever arose due to tap water. Essentially do whatever is comfortable.

 

[bobrown14]

I've only used tap water, 2 years straight. I reuse milk jugs for water storage. Once emptied I refill and let sit. My growing medium is living soil and no problems have ever arose due to tap water. Essentially do whatever is comfortable.

Gaffle yes tap water left out to sit FOR MOST PEOPLE is fine.

I live in a city and the tap water is TERRIBLE. Lots of chemicals and lots of unknown minerals in addition to flouride/lead/chlorine/chloramine and who knows what else.

I was unable to use my tap water to grow any plants in a container.

So my options are filter or collect rain water. We do both but I do not carry buckets of water into my indoor grow. I use filtered water and let water pressure do all my heavy lifting.

Hey @Vegan4life, are you sure your RO filter doesn't get the Chloramines??

I'm allergic to them, got my allergy from swimming too many laps at the YMCA swim training.. do 10,000 meters a week. Chlormine has a smell, I've never smelled it from my RO water. Chloramine is the smell you smell when the water smells like Chlorine... it's actually chloramine.. but it highly unstable and binds well with amonia nitrogen and hydrogen. Reason the pool smells is the reaction of chlorine with waste products that are on our skin and in the water urea (basically nitrogen).

Also chloramine is not stable so it won't hang around long so letting your water sit out is enough.

 

[Gaffle]

Bobrown, what happened when you did use city water? As in plants went poopy?

 

[bobrown14]

Bobrown, what happened when you did use city water? As in plants went poopy?

Slow growth with fan leaf necrosis... I couldn't do anything to stop it until I started using filtered water which we were already doing for drinking. I didn't think anything of it because we used tap water in our outdoor gardens with not ill effect.

Problems are in containers.

 

[Vegan4life]

Gaffle yes tap water left out to sit FOR MOST PEOPLE is fine.

I live in a city and the tap water is TERRIBLE. Lots of chemicals and lots of unknown minerals in addition to flouride/lead/chlorine/chloramine and who knows what else.

I was unable to use my tap water to grow any plants in a container.

So my options are filter or collect rain water. We do both but I do not carry buckets of water into my indoor grow. I use filtered water and let water pressure do all my heavy lifting.

Hey @Vegan4life, are you sure your RO filter doesn't get the Chloramines??

I'm allergic to them, got my allergy from swimming too many laps at the YMCA swim training.. do 10,000 meters a week. Chlormine has a smell, I've never smelled it from my RO water. Chloramine is the smell you smell when the water smells like Chlorine... it's actually chloramine.. but it highly unstable and binds well with amonia nitrogen and hydrogen. Reason the pool smells is the reaction of chlorine with waste products that are on our skin and in the water urea (basically nitrogen).

Also chloramine is not stable so it won't hang around long so letting your water sit out is enough.

I add a chloramine filter to my 5 stage RO filtration systems. My RO membranes were failing in less than a six month period, so I talked to tech support at my RO supplier and they told me that if we have chloramines in our water it will burn out the RO membrane fast. Local water supplier denies using chloramine. I add the chloramine filter anyway and now my membranes last 2 years or more. Also I am a Licensed Plumbing contractor and I install and service these RO systems all the time with the same results. I always replace one of the carbon block filters with a chloramine filter.

 

[bobrown14]

Hey Vegan, how do you know your membrane need replacement?? I do a PPM test and when the PPMs are above say 14ppm or there abouts, I replace. We used to go thru the membrane like said in like 6 months and I could tell cause I could smell the choramine. Then I would test and then replace. Lately say in the past 2 years it's been much better.

I'm wondering if the water co is using less chlorine or no chloromine??

 

[Old Salt]

Chloramine when added to municipal water can produce chemicals 300 times more toxic than chlorine alone. It's highly recommended that RO carbon pre-filters be changed every three months to extend the life of the RO membrane. The carbon filters will remove the chloramine, but have a limited lifespan.

I'm on a well. I only replaced the pre-filters annually, and the membrane lasts five or more years.

 

[Vegan4life]

Hey Vegan, how do you know your membrane need replacement?? I do a PPM test and when the PPMs are above say 14ppm or there abouts, I replace. We used to go thru the membrane like said in like 6 months and I could tell cause I could smell the choramine. Then I would test and then replace. Lately say in the past 2 years it's been much better.

I'm wondering if the water co is using less chlorine or no chloromine??

I use a tds meter. You need to compare tap water ppm to RO water ppm to check rejection rate (you need to do the math to calculate rejection rate). Rule of thumb is when you get down to 80% rejection rate its time to replace membrane, all other filters should be replaced every 6 - 12 months depending on usage. If I check and i'm around 85% rejection or lower I will replace membrane.

(example) If my tap water is 500 ppm and my RO water is 50 ppm I have a 90% rejection rate. This is acceptable to me. I usually never get better than a 95% rejection rate with a new RO filter, which would give me around 25 ppm.

 

[Vegan4life]

Chloramine when added to municipal water can produce chemicals 300 times more toxic than chlorine alone. It's highly recommended that RO carbon pre-filters be changed every three months to extend the life of the RO membrane. The carbon filters will remove the chloramine, but have a limited lifespan.

I'm on a well. I only replaced the pre-filters annually, and the membrane lasts five or more years.

Regular carbon block filter will not remove chloramines. You need a "Chloramine filter" to remove chloramines.

 

[Vegan4life]

You can do a Google search to read about it - chloramine catalytic carbon filter

 

[bobrown14]

I use a tds meter. You need to compare tap water ppm to RO water ppm to check rejection rate (you need to do the math to calculate rejection rate). Rule of thumb is when you get down to 80% rejection rate its time to replace membrane, all other filters should be replaced every 6 - 12 months depending on usage. If I check and i'm around 85% rejection or lower I will replace membrane.

(example) If my tap water is 500 ppm and my RO water is 50 ppm I have a 90% rejection rate. This is acceptable to me. I usually never get better than a 95% rejection rate with a new RO filter, which would give me around 25 ppm.

Interesting ... thanks for your process. I've always replaced our membrane @ around 15ppm. Good to know I can go longer. The pre-filters you replace more often. That's good to know.

I run 2 RO filters one is for plant water the other is for human water consumption.

Our tap water runs out at around 400ppm and it contains a fair amount of lead.

Old city pipes ... then they put chemicals in the water so the lead in the pipes doesn't get in the water.. only goes so far. It's potable I guess... we've ran a RO filter for almost the whole time we've lived here. I cannot grow plants in containers with our tap water. They die. I took that as a sign.

On activated carbon (charcoal) and chloromine. I'm under the impression that will remove the chloromine??

You have a source for your info that say it doesn't work?? Everything I read says it will filter out chloromine.

I'm familiar with how activated charcoal works so it just makes sense that it will remove both chlorine and chloromine. I may be wrong tho!

I am allergic to chloromine. I swim train and swim every day for a lot of laps and am in the pool a few hours every day. Developed the allergy this past spring when the pool asswipes were shocking the pool EVERY DAY with chlorine and other chemicals. I had to stop swimming at that pool it got so bad.

 

[Vegan4life]

Interesting ... thanks for your process. I've always replaced our membrane @ around 15ppm. Good to know I can go longer. The pre-filters you replace more often. That's good to know.

I run 2 RO filters one is for plant water the other is for human water consumption.

Our tap water runs out at around 400ppm and it contains a fair amount of lead.

Old city pipes ... then they put chemicals in the water so the lead in the pipes doesn't get in the water.. only goes so far. It's potable I guess... we've ran a RO filter for almost the whole time we've lived here. I cannot grow plants in containers with our tap water. They die. I took that as a sign.

On activated carbon (charcoal) and chloromine. I'm under the impression that will remove the chloromine??

You have a source for your info that say it doesn't work?? Everything I read says it will filter out chloromine.

I'm familiar with how activated charcoal works so it just makes sense that it will remove both chlorine and chloromine. I may be wrong tho!

I am allergic to chloromine. I swim train and swim every day for a lot of laps and am in the pool a few hours every day. Developed the allergy this past spring when the pool asswipes were shocking the pool EVERY DAY with chlorine and other chemicals. I had to stop swimming at that pool it got so bad.

You can do a Google search to read about it - chloramine catalytic carbon filter