I was wondering for those of you using a RODI system and are on Ann Arbor city water or using another city's water, if you know if the city uses chlorine or chloramines for water disinfection. I am in the process of moving from AA to Minneapolis (my tank is already in MN actually), and because I was in the process of buying a RODI system, I investigated whether Minneapolis city water contained chlorine or chloramines. After a couple calls to the Minneapolis water department it was evident that chloramines were used, although chlorine is added to the water in the process of generating chloramines (so the water contains both free chlorine and conjugated chlorine in the form of chloramines).
Well, I had also asked this question to a Twin City reef club, and to my surprise, most respondents did not know which the city used, and worse, others were confident it was chlorine, not chloramines. It is important to know which is in the city water if you purify your own water as chloramines require special filters and/or special/extra DI resin for removal. In Minneapolis, as in AA, the water department provides an annual report to citizens on city water quality. The Minneapolis reports, which were available online, were a bit confusing because the recent reports made no mention of chloramines, but did list chlorine as being in the water. So the TC club interpreted in the report the presence of chlorine as proof that chlorine, not chloramine, was used for disinfection. However, as stated above, the water contained both chlorine and chloramines. Not even a staff member at BRS, which is located in Minneapolis, was confident which disinfectant was used in the city water. This was a surprise as BRS sells special RODI systems for chloramine removal.
I have not investigated AA city water because I am leaving town. But I am curious how many of you know what is in your city water, chloramines or chlorine only. The staff member at the Minneapolis water department with whom I communicated said that more and more cities are switching to chloramines.
So my question is do you know if your city uses chlorine or chloramines for water disinfection?
Roughly 30% of the major water providers in the US are using Chloramines versus other methods such as gaseous chlorine, hypochlorite generators, tablet feeders or Chlorine Dioxide which is another popular method of disinfection.
If you have a good reef quality RO/DI its not really an issue but if you are using tap water, RO only or are using what I would term "E Bay quality filters" then it can be a major issue.
It is always a good idea to call your water provider and speak to someone who is knowledgable on water quality. When I managed utilities I got calls referred to me all the time as most of the people who worked for the City knew my hobby was saltwater fish and reef tanks. I even kept aquariums in my office and lobby as well as freshwater tanks in the lab!
In Michigan, there are only 4 water supplies that use chloramines:
Ann Arbor
Boyne City
Lansing
East Lansing/Meridian
There is an increase in interest for water supplies considering chloramines due to the Disinfection By-Product Rule passed by the EPA several years ago. Depending on the local conditions, simple chlorination can form trihalomethanes and haloacetic acid which are carcinogens. Systems using chlormamines often can reduce the by-product formation to meet the EPA rule.
Water supplies are required to provide a "Consumer Confidence Report" each year. Most city's should have their report online which would have information about whether or not your water supply uses chloramines (and other treatment processes).
It is my understanding that both chloramine and chlorine are removed in the carbon block stage of the RO/DI system.
Chloramination is only one of several alternative methods of residual disinfection to reduce the formation or TTHM's or trihalomethanes, disinfection byproducts. I mentioned several others earlier which are all popular methods and each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
While water suppliers are required by federal law to provide an annual "Consumer Confidence" or better known as a water quality report, they are not much use in reality. The report usually only contains data for what was tested in that previous calendar year and not all constituents are required to be tested annually. Some things are still on a 3 to 9 year testing cycle, some are every 4 years while others are daily, monthly or quarterly. It is important to note, the reports are usually sent out in September and the data is actually from the previous calendar year so is already a year old before you get it in your hands. Use it as a "rough guide" only. It is also an average of the sites tested showing low and high results and ranges but it does not always identify which test results came from which well, point of entry or plant so what appears good may have been from a site clear across twon, miles away.
Call the Utility, tell them why you are calling and let them refer you to someone within the organization who is knowledgable on the subject. Chloramines are only one item of concern, there are many others as bad or worse such as phosphate addition to reduce corrosion in the distribution system or significant changes in treatment methods or pH that can happen all the time without notice. If you make friends with soneone in the utility they can keep you informed about changes and challenges.
Carbon ONLY removes the chlorine portion of chloramines, the ammonia portion is still present and requires good DI resin and contact time for full treatment since RO is not real effective at forms of ammonia. It really takes all 3 steps, carbon, RO and DI to be 100% effective.
I agree with AZ that water quality reports are not always that useful. Interpretation of a recent Minneapolis water report caused confusion in the Twin City reef forum I mentioned in the first post. I agree with AZ that carbon is good at removing the chlorine component of chloramines and that DI will remove the ammonia. However, some manufacturers/sellers (BRS, The Filter Guys, Spectrapure) offer chloramine blocks (pre-RO filters) that contain catalytic carbon are claimed to reduce total chloramine (not just chlorine component) given sufficent contatct time. I know AZ is not a fan of the chloramine catalytic carbon filters.
Here is a link to A2's report. One nice thing about the CCR is that it only reports water parameters that are detected...as opposed to the hundereds of parameters which are not detected. So for most water supplies, the table is failry short and easy to read. As you can see in A2's report, chloramines are in the table of detected parameters. Water supplies are required to update their report by July 1 each year for the previous year's detected parameters.
@AZDesertRat
is correct that all monitored parameters aren't included on the report if they are on a 3 or 9 year monitoring cycle. However, if a system is not meeting the maximum contaminant level for a particular parameter, they would be on an increased monitoring frequency. Some parameters have a maximum contaminant level other than "0" (or non-detectable).
What does all this mean for us reef keepers? Remember, water from your tap is intended to provide safe drinking water...not necessarily perfect aquarium water. While you could call and talk to someone from your water supply to answer questions, my guess is that most of them are not going to know the specifics of maintaining a reef aquarium. And as near as I can tell, the answer is nearly always going to be the same: if you are concerned about contaminants in your aquarium, a quality RO/DI system that is properly maintained will remove the (reef) contaminants often present in tap water.
While Spectrapure does sell a chloramine carbon block, they do not offer any system the sell with on preinstalled as a standard item. They have done decades of testing using both their high quality carbon blocks they offer asstandard equipment and catalytic carbons (chloramine removal) and found them unnecessary and an added expense you do not need to incur. This is also why all their systems only contain a single carbon block rather than some less knowledgable vendors who still insist on using two. 25+ years in the business and hundreds of thousands of $$ research and development have taught them a thing or two. Most vendors do not have biologists and engineers on staff nor have a full blown testing facility or lab to do this testing so they adhere to methods used 25 years ago when carbon development and efficiency was not what it is today.
Jim, while you are correct about increased monitoring, if it does not get tested on its regular cycle for another 3-4 years you could be experiencing increased levels and not even know it until it gets tested again. The reports are and were a way to appease the EPA and the general public at the time they were enacted, I remember this well as I sat on many stakeholder committees on the state and regional levels during the rulemaking process. Its just another tool in your arsenal but not something to hang your hat on, just a guide like a litmus paper test.
Jim, while you are correct about increased monitoring, if it does not get tested on its regular cycle for another 3-4 years you could be experiencing increased levels and not even know it until it gets tested again. The reports are and were a way to appease the EPA and the general public at the time they were enacted, I remember this well as I sat on many stakeholder committees on the state and regional levels during the rulemaking process. Its just another tool in your arsenal but not something to hang your hat on, just a guide like a litmus paper test.
That's true...but the report has nothing to do with the testing frequencies and what could happen in between monitoring events. The water supply won't be able to answer questions about sample results from samples they haven't collected...they could refer you to the last CCR containing those parameters. If they collected samples in the current calendar year that has yet to be reported in the CCR, then yes, you may be able to get more info with a phone call. Either way, I see the answer as the same...if one is worried about contaminants in their reef aquarium (as they should be), RO/DI is the way to go.
I agree about the carbon block. I don't think it has to be a "chloramine" carbon block...just a good one that hasn't been spent already. I'm not sure what the best way to determine the change out frequency of a carbon block? I guess one way could be to monitor the RO/DI effluent for total chlorine.
I also agree the CCR had a lot to do with appeasing special interest groups/public at the time. But I think it is a decent tool to inform the public about their drinking water. I like having them online to reference as well.
Yes, the two methods of determining the condition of a carbon block are monitoring pressure drop or headloss due to plugging or fouling with pressure gauges upstream and downstream and monitoring for chlorine breakthru in the finished water. I do both myself personally using an inline pressure gauge before the sediment filter to watch the tap water or incoming pressure and the downstream inline pressure gauge on the membrane housing. I can see at a glance if there is any difference between the two pressures. I also have a low range chlorine test kit I purchased from Spectrapure to monitor for chlorine. The test kit and extra gauge were both very inexpensive and good tools to have.
People need to pay attention to the micron size rating of their sediment filters, if it is coarse it allows particles and colloidal materials to pass through and fould the billions of tiny microscopic pores in the carbon block rendering it useless for adsorbing chlorine and toasting their RO membrane. Use only good low micron sediment and carbon block filters and absolute rated is better than nominal rated for the little more they cost.
Off on a bit of a tangent here...but I think that the parameters that are monitored every three years get reported as the same each year (with a note about the collection date) on the CCR. Only results that are more than 5 years old don't get reported.
Ann Arbor city water, chlorine or chloramine?
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by AZDesertRat
