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Re: chloramine
Wright Huntley said....
>San Jose (Santa Clara Valley Water District) did not, so they have to
>add it. Any time turbidity of the Hetch-Hetchy gets high (drought times)
>they run the SF water through San Jose area reservoirs to settle, then
>treat it and send it on up the peninsula to Crystal Springs. The result
>has been dead fish from Santa Clara to S. San Francisco. *No one* was
>warned about this!
In Ottawa they spent $80,000 to warn Pet Shops, Hospitals, and
the Public. There was some argument in Council over this expenditure.
>This year, they are going after smaller distributors, and both East-Bay
>MUD and Alameda County Water District will be adding chloramine by the
>beginning of the year. That is *soon*! I would bet that SF is not going
>to get out of it for long. EBMUD was kind enough to warn customers, but
>I haven't seen any major public announcement by Alameda, so far.
>Until the controversy over the carcinogenic breakdown products of
>chloramine is resolved, I'm not about to drink the tap water any more.
>My fish and I only get carbon-filtered water, or they get a generous
>dose of Amquel o/e to neutralize the chlorine *and* the ammonia of the
>chloramine.
What controversy is this. In Ottawa they were worried that the levels
of tri-halomethanes were too high, so they decided to switch from
chlorine treatment to chloramine treatment.
In answer to the original question posed, I use a product containing
sodium thiosulfate and sodium carbonate to treat tap water. This water
contains about 1 ppm chloramine with a pH above 7.5. Often I will
change up to 70% of the tank volume. I've never seen any stress in the
fish. However, my advice to others is to use a chlorine remover only
if your resulting pH will be below 7.2, you have a fair number of
healthy plants, you are aware of the amount of chloramine being added
to the water by your local authority, and are able to adjust para-
meters accordingly. A product such as Fritz Chlorine Remover is much
less expensive than Amquel.
--
Dave Whittaker
ac554 at FreeNet_Carleton.ca