Chlorine......chloramine

[sianuk]

I noticed on my water conditioner the dosage for chlorine and chloramine are different (twice the dosage for Chloramine) what is the difference between the 2 chemicals and which should i treat for here in the UK

thxs Ian

 

[smmetz]

Chloromine is chlorine plus ammonia.

Here is a good article on different products to treat water.

http/www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/rev-cond.htm

Pay attention to this footnote:

Products where the second "Y" is in brackets are those which state that they remove chloramine, but in most cases contain only sodium thiosulfate (the same as standard dechlorinators for chlorine only). Usually, a higher dose is recommended for chloramines - this is to make sure the chlorine part is split from the chloramine and neutralised - however, this releases the ammonia part, so the chloramine is not fully dealt with. An example of the manufacturers' awareness of this, is shown by the fact that API recommend Ammo-Lock in conjunction with Stress Coat, if you need to deal with ammonia. Here is a good article rating what different products do for chlorine and chloromine. Pay attention to this footnote:

So, not all products that claim to take care of chloromine actually do the job. As you can see, some leave toxic ammonia in the water.

 

[rdd1952]

Chloramine also will not disapate from the water as will chlorine and must be neutralized with a water conditioner. I use StessCoat and have never had any problems. I also don't measure it. I just squirt some in the tank. You can't overdose it. If your tank is cycled, you don't need the Ammo-Lock.

 

[andywg]

Chlorine is a free gas and will naturally gas out of water. Chloramine is chlorine bound to ammonia to form a liquid that will not gass off of the water.

However, in areas where chloramine is being used the bacteria (identical to the ones we want in our tanks) have become immune to the chloramine and actually feed on the ammonia. When the bond is broken the chlroine is in a different, far less toxic, form in the water (before gassing off at the surface). A couple of people have done long running tests (6 months now IIRC) of not using any dechlorinator on tanks and have found no ill effects from either chlorine or chloramine.

Any dechlorinator which contains sodium thiosulphate (almost all of those that do not claim to deal with chloramines as well) will stop chlorine or chloramine being a problem. The resulting ammonia levels will not be anything that a cycled filter will deal with extremely quickly.