# Water Parameters



## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

I am in the process of planning for a water storage tank for my Malawi Cichlids, and wanted to hear some other people's opinions of what would be the best solution in a situation such as mine.

Current water parameters from my municipal water system contains approxemately 3.5ppm of chloramine, so that is what I am trying to clean to put into my tanks.

*Currently, I have a chloramine reducing system (Catalytic Carbon) on my whole house which will reduce the chloramine by 98% and leave me with about 0.07ppm (lets say 0.1ppm to make it easier).

*During the process of reducing the chloramine I get ammonia as a byproduct. Since my PH is over 7, it is my understanding that it is Ammonnium Hydroxide (NH4). When reading the level of NH4 coming out of my faucet after it has gone through the chloramine reducing system, I get a reading between 1.5 and 2.0ppm in my water.

*My PH is around 8.2 out of the faucet, but it drops slighty when it is stored.

*GH/KH are both very low and is between 3-5

My hope is to have a large (200G) water storage tank for automated water changes since I have so many different tanks and many which contain fry and juvie (Maybe do a 20%-30% WC each day) and I want them to have the best quality water that I can give them. My preference is to make the best water that I can for my fish, but if possible, I would like to avoid adding more things (steps) to my water than what I need. At this time, it takes my filtration about 12 hours or so to get the ammonia level down to between 0ppm and 0.5ppm from the 1.5ppm-2.0ppm in a populated tank when I use a product that binds the ammonia.

So here are some thoughts that I have on this situation:
- Would I be able to use this water without using an ammonia binding product since all of the tanks have working biological filtration. It is my understanding that the way it breaks down is 1-1-1, in other words; 1ppm of ammonia will convert into 1ppm of nitrite which in turn will convert into 1ppm of nitrate. Since my biological filtration system will convert the ammonia regardless if is bound or not, it will result in the same amount of nitrite and nitrate. 
This way it would give my water a 1.5-0-0 parameter

- Another alternative is that I put a biological filtration system on my storage tank which will convert the 1.5ppm-2.0ppm of ammonia into nitrates before I use this water to do water canges as long as I allow the biological filtration system to do its work. 
This way would give my water a 0-0-1.5 parameter

- The third alternative is to bind the ammonia which would make it harmless to the fish, but it would still exist in the water.
This way it would give my water a 1.5-0-0 parameter, but the ammonia would be bound.

Anyone have any thoughts on this, or have done something similar to this before?

opcorn:


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

To add to te previous post:
To make sure that the chloramine is completely gone, I would probably have a liquid dispenser with prime/erase-cl or someting similar to make sure that the last traces of chloramine is removed and does not make it in to the aquariums. I don't know at what level chloramine become toxic to the fish, but I suspect that if they are constantly exposed to it, eventually it could cause some damage to the fish even at low levels.

There is just a lot of difference of dosing for a lower level of chloramine, lets say dosing on the high end for 0.4ppm or dosing for 3.5ppm which is what it would be without my filtration. The same goes for dosing for 0.4ppm chloramine or 1.5, or 2.0ppm of ammonia. I would have to use significantly more chemicals if I wanted to dose for the ammonia compared to if I was just dosing for the chloramine trace.


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## triscuit (May 6, 2005)

I think you should look into Seachem Safe... or ChlorAmX. Both are going to be much cheaper for treating large amounts of water. Prime is a great product, but when my fishroom grew, I switched to the dechlor that comes in buckets.

Now, onto the water quality. Your dechlor already binds ammonia, but your test kit doesn't differentiate. So, while not ideal, your water is "safe" enough for your fish. Of course you'll need to raise your GH/KH levels, and that can be done at the same time you are adding your dechlor. While I can see the point of trying to remove the need for dechlor, keep in mind that your utility company can switch up their water treatment methods with no warning. One option you might consider is using something like an automatic feeder to dispense baking soda, epsom salt, and ChlorAmX at appropriate intervals into your storage tank.

I'd put a seeded sponge filter into your storage anyway- increases oxygenation and provides great biomedia if there is bioavailable ammonia. It can't hurt.


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

I undertand the argument with having to be very careful regarding what the municipal water source does to the water. We do get notices from our water company regarding any changes that is going to occur. Currently what they do is switch from using 3.5ppm Chloramine to regular chlorine from March 15th through April 15th in order to clean the pipes. The filtration system that I have on my house will remove (almost) the chlorine form the water under both of those circumstances. When I tested the water earlier this week from my faucet, the chloramine level was at at 0.14ppm and my ammonia level was somewhere around 1.5ppm-2.0ppm. My ammonia tester is not as accurate as the chloramine tester is, so I am not sure about the exact amount of ammonia that is still in the water.

Since I have these water parameters, my hope is to try to eliminate the need for a product such as Erase-cl to remove the chloramine. Since the dosing is based on actual water volume and not the amount of chloramine that is in the water (as long as it is below the level indicated on the bottle), I will have to contact the manufacturer to see if that dose can be altered and still be effective enough to remove the trace that is left after passing trough my carbon filter.

At what point is chloramine dangerous to the fish? Is 0.2ppm chloramine something that will affect them? My thought are that it will, but I do not know the facts.

I spoke with someone today that suggested adding a water softener to the home system and that would (per their claim) remove, or as it is in reality reduce ammonia by 95-98%. My GH/KH is already so low that I have to add buffer and salt anyway, so I am not sure that it would adversly affect me in that regard.

He offered to come out with a water softener and hook it up to my system and let me test the water as I am a little sceptical that it will actually remove all the ammonia.

So IF the softener works and actually removes enough ammonia to bring it down to 0.05ppm, then I would be very happy with putting that into my tank.

I am going to email the manufacturer(s) of the dechlor products and see what they say in regards to dosing when the chloramine content is as low as mine.


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

I just added a water softener to my faucet to test how my Ammonia is affected and it went from being around 2.00ppm (Hard to tell exactly using the test kit), to 0ppm.

So, adding a softner to your system does indeed remove the ammonia that is left after removing the chloramine in your water system.

Now... having rift lake cichlids, the next issue is that generally you do not want soft water so I am still looking into seeing how much is has affected my KH/GH.As it is now, I add some buffer and salt to increase those values, and the question is how much more of that would I have to add compared to what I use now.

After reading seachem's website, I found out that if you do have much smaller amounts of ammonia/chloramine/clorine, half of a dose is ok to use. I am still waiting on an answer from Brightwell aquatics to see what they recommend. I am really not concerned with putting water into my aquarium that contains between 0ppm and 0.25ppm of ammonia. I am much more concerned about the chloramine, and at what level it becomes unhealthy for the fish, so I am still searching for that answer. If anyone knows the answer to that question, please add to this thread.


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## PreposterousFish (Jan 8, 2013)

How about running the water through purigen before going to the holding tank?


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

PreposterousFish said:


> How about running the water through purigen before going to the holding tank?


I have not heard about Purigen removing Chloramine. I know that it is capable of removing Ammonia, Nitrite as well as Nitrate.

It doesn't say anything about chlorine/chloramine on their website.


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## PreposterousFish (Jan 8, 2013)

No, I was talking about since you already have the whole home filter removing the majority of the chloramine and you are left with the ammonia. So, you could run it through purigen before going to the holding tank.


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

PreposterousFish said:


> No, I was talking about since you already have the whole home filter removing the majority of the chloramine and you are left with the ammonia. So, you could run it through purigen before going to the holding tank.


That could work since the level of Ammonia is relatively low.

I wonder how much ammonia it would actually remove just passing through a canister, or if I would need to have an actual filter attached to the holding tank and let the water circulate through the filter several times.

If I had 1L (1qt), that would treat 1000G for "up to" 6 months according to seachem's website. So if I had a canister the size of a Fluval 306/406 it should circulate about 200G/250G per hour respectivly which is about the size of the holding tank, plus the water would come out sparkly clean. 

It is worth a try. Water softeners are not cheap to buy. They are fairly inexpoensive to operate, but the purchase of a mechanical one will cost a bit of $$ for sure. Even buying he 306/406 would be a lot cheaper if I needed to go that route.


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## PreposterousFish (Jan 8, 2013)

I was thinking something more like this:










borrowed from:
http://diyfishkeepers.com/forum/showthread.php?8320-Inline-dechlorinator

It would require some tweaking with amount of purigen and contact time. Factors that I don't know. Luckily I don't have to deal with chloramines.


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

To remove chloramines it requires Catalyctic Carbon, and one of the by products is Ammonia. I was reading that thread and I have seen the difference between regular carbon (which did not remove it) and catalyctic carbon. It is my understanding that regular carbon will remove it if it has a tremendous amount of contact time compared to what it takes with catalyctic.

When I read your second post, I pictured something like what you have in the picture, but I am actually going to need someting a little more permanent, so I am probably going to try an in-line filter canister to see if it gives me enough surface time to actually remove the ammonia. I am currecntly researching how much surface time is needed to actually remove enough. If I need to, I can always add a second, third etc cannister ince they are very inexpensive.

It may be that I would need so much surface time that it would be inefficient to use an inline system, and then I could always use a canister filtration system on the storage tank itself. I will have to see what comes out of it.

I will update this thread as I find out more information.


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

Ok, so I have heard back from Seachem, and here is what they said in regards to using Purigen in a situation such as mine:

_"Purigen removes organic compounds before they can breakdown into ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates; but it does not directly remove them. You could certainly use Purigen in the display tank to help keep organic waste under control, but it wouldn't solve your ammonia issue in your storage tank."_

So, I think that the ammonia that I have in my water is something that I will just have to live with and use a biological filtration system such as a sponge filter to get rid of. I have been told that the conversion rate for Ammonia-Nitrites-Nitrates is 1-1-1, so if I add 2.00ppm to my aquariums, it is not going to make that much difference. I much rather have that done than to increase the amount of Ammonia that is in the tank.

A solution that they gave me is this:
_"The numbers aren't so high that this would be a huge issue, but it could be avoided. If you set up a filter which can hold a granular biomedia, like a canister filter, you could utilize Matrix. Because of Matrix's macroporous internal surface area, it is able to support anaerobic de-nitrifying bacteria and help lower nitrates._

I have asked some follow up questions in regards to that, so we will see what the response will be.

They also stated the following:
_"0.14ppm chloramine should be well within the tolerable range for most fish. Invertebrates are usually more sensitive and have a lower threshold for chloramine being toxic, but at that level it should be practically negligible after it is diluted into the tank water."_

My thought in regads to the Chloramine is that it wouldn't really be diluted down from the 0.14ppm since that is going to be in all of my water and it is not something that my filtration system is not going to be able to remove chloramine. Can anyone confirm/deny how this would affect Malawi cichlids? Fry?


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## PreposterousFish (Jan 8, 2013)

kpswd said:


> Ok, so I have heard back from Seachem, and here is what they said in regards to using Purigen in a situation such as mine:
> 
> _"Purigen removes organic compounds before they can breakdown into ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates; but it does not directly remove them. You could certainly use Purigen in the display tank to help keep organic waste under control, but it wouldn't solve your ammonia issue in your storage tank."_


Thanks for the update. I certainly misunderstood how purigen worked.


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

That was not the answer that I was expecting either regarding Purigen, so that is not going to work.

I received an answer from Seachem in regards to the acceptable levels of *continuos *exposure of chloramine, and it is a lot less than the 0.14ppm that I have after the water going through the catalyctic carbon filtration that I have in my house.

Here is what they stated as a correction:
_"I though that (0.14ppm) may be within the tolerated range, but after researching further and consulting with one of our chemists I need to append that statement to say that chloramine should be virtually undetectable in a closed system like an aquarium. 0.003ppm is considered a maximum tolerable limit for continuous exposure."_

So that is a lot lower than I will be able to get it using a mechanical filtration system. The good news is that it is possible that when you are dealing with lower levels such as this, someone told me that you can use a 50% dose of Prime and still reach the desired effect of removing the chloramine. *I have yet to confirm this information.*

Since I still have to deal with the higher level of Ammonia, it seems that I have 2 ways to deal with bringing that down to an acceptable level. Using a chemical such as Prime, or including a biological filtration system in my storage tank.

I think that the best feasable solution is that which Triscuit suggested earlier in the thread, which was to install a sponge filter in the storage tank. This would convert the 2.00ppm of Ammonia to Nitrates, and it will provide a supply of oxygene to the water in the storage tank. Since I am aiming for an automatic water changing system where all of the water in my storage tank will be exchanged at the same time (30 minutes or so) and then be filled with an auto top-off, I should be able to keep the Ammonia levels stable enough so that bacteria in the sponge will never be starved of Ammonia.

If the Ammonia is removed, I would be able to dose 50% of Prime/Erase-Cl or whatever I decide to use. A 2 Liter bottle should last over 6 months with a daily 200G water change, so it won't be too bad from a cost standpoint. Even if I still have to dose at 100%, a 2 Liter bottle would last for over 3 months. It is not as cost effective as a powder, but it would be a lot easier to dispense automatically into my storage tank than a powder.


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

Ok.. so I have an update to where I am with this testing.

I still have a filtration system for my whole house with Catalyctic Carbon in it to help remove(reduce) the Chloramine in my water.

Currently my water parameters out of my tap are (bypassing the filter):
Chloramine 3.5ppm
Ammonia 2.0ppm
Nitrates 0ppm

So here is where I have run in to some issues..

My water parameters when filtration system is in use:
Chloramine 0.15ppm
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrates 5.0ppm (my guess is that it is a little lower than this, but the scale has 0ppm, then 5ppm)

So, it looks like what is happening is that I have a nitrification process going on in my house plumbing.

I switched off the filtration system and ran water through all of my faucets for about 5-10 minutes and then turned them all off and did not use any water again for 12 hours and let the water sit. I was hoping that this will kill the nitrification bacteria. There is of course the piece where the filtration system is hooked up as well as the filtration system itself that will not get the chloramine in it.

So now when I am testing the water again the next day, I get the following results:
Bypassing filtration system:
Chloramine 3.5ppm
Ammonia 2.0ppm
Nitrates 0ppm.

The next step is to put the filtration system back on line, and then turn on the faucets for about 10 minutes to make sure that I am getting water from my municipal source and then through the filtration system.
Again, I get:
Chloramine 0.15ppm
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrate 5.0ppm

So, I am a little stomped here in trying to figure out what is going on. My filter canister is no more than 20-30 gallons, and it has carbon media in it, so it does not hold a great deal of water.

Where is my ammonia going, and where are my nitrates coming from?

There is no way that the nitrification process can be fast enough to work when it goes through the filter, is there? :-?


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

I wanted to add a quick note to the post. When I first set up the system, the values that I got was:
Chloramine 0.14ppm
Ammonia 2.0ppm
Nitrates 0ppm

So something has changed over the past month. Unfortunately, I have only tested the water for chloramine over the past month, and dosed for the 2.0ppm ammonia. I know now that I should have tested for the levels of ammonia coming out of my faucet. That way I could have detected what was going on earlier, but I figured that as long as the chloramine was low, I would get the ammonia by product from that, and dosed accordingly.


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## kpswd (Sep 13, 2011)

I am not sure that it makes a difference, but Nitrite is 0ppm when I first installed the system, when I bypass the system as well as when I tested earlier this afternoon with the filtration system connected.

I literally let the faucet run for 30 minutes before taking the test. Making sure that all of the water in my house plumbing as well as the filtration tank would be flushed out.


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