I actually found my plants have been doing better sine I've been using the water conditioner more moderately. (4 drops per 1/2 gallon) and letting it sit for a while before watering the plants. I am debating about trying the vitamin c though.

I don 't know the amount of vitamin c. If I find out , I will let you know.

This is interesting. I did a quick google of "chloramine vitamin c reaction" and looked at this pdf which had this to say about amounts:

"6. Add ascorbic acid (vitamin C). 1000 milligrams is enough for 30-50 gallons of water. Instead of crushing a tablet I would suggest adding a tiny amount of powdered vitamin C to the water. The sites I saw only suggest this for removing chloramine from bath water. Not sure why. They also donâÂÂt say how long it takes for the chloramine to neutralize using this method. Lastly, the ascorbic acid in vitamin C will lower the ph of your water slightly. I do not know what effect this will have on your cultures."

This is from a site "Institute of Urban Homesteading", and they are concerned about keeping various things that are cultured alive in the presence of chloramine. But just like the previous post was saying about the sodium thiosulfate, neutralizers don't just magically make the chloramine go away somewhere, but chemically react with it to make other substances. What you would need to know is what is left after you add vit c and whether it is okay for plants.

It was an interesting pdf to look at and had several ways to get rid of chloramine. Good luck with your research.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chloramine pdf

Thank you so much for doing that research!
I will study the info and try to calculate how much to add to a gallon jug.
That is what I use.

you can get 'sour salt' in the spices section (not everywhere though) - it is ascorbic acid in powder form. it's similar to fine table salt in appearance.
so this converter should help. 1gram=1000milligram=15.43 grains of salt. they don't say how fine/large are grains though...
let's say roughly it's for 45 gallons for convenience of calculation. so it'll be 1 grain for 3 gallons of water.
that seems very very little...
if you have a precision kitchen scale, perhaps you can also weigh 1gram of salt and then measure it.

Here is a link that might be useful: salt milligrams conversions

Thank you! Yes, it is a minute amount. I have "clipped" this and the post on chloramine to save for reference. Joanne

Grains are units of weight in the English system most often used to measure gunpowder or salt. I would just go with converting it to ounces so I didn't get confused. 1000 mg is about equal to 3/100 of an ounce. If that is enough to treat 30 gallons, then the amount that you would need for one gallon is much smaller than your scale can measure. I would keep looking things up and see if that is a valid number or not. I never take the first thing I find on the internet. There were a lot of links on the Google page for "ascorbic acid chloramine reaction" I would look at more of them. It must be a small amount needed though, since he also says you can treat water also by mashing up an orange and putting it in it, or mixing it up into fruit juice concentrate.

Thanks so much for the feedback! Actually, I used it hurriedly the other day before doing research and dumped a 500 mg. capsule into 2 gallons of water. A few days later, some leaves that were sending up babies seemed to "explode" with growth! It could be a coincidence, that several suddenly got a growth spurt. However, I won't repeat that again as it seems just a smidge is all that is required. I am back to bottled spring water for now. Joanne

smth new i did not know about 'grain of salt' :))))
from the same site:
1 teaspoon (tsp) of table salt volume
Equals: 5.69 grams (g) in table salt mass..of course it depends on whether it is fine or coarse..
.but you can weigh it yourself if you have the precision scale.
eye-balling here...rounding up to 6g approx 1/8tsp = 3/4g for 22-38gal. that's a lot of gallons...
poland spring jug is 2.5gal so 9 - 15 jugs using 1/8tsp. if you can manage to divide it... somehow...
what i wound do is dissolve it in water first, like in a cup or two of water, and then portion water out according to the amt: 16oz = 32tb .../9 = 3.5 tb /16 = 2tb of water . so 2-3.5 tb of solution per jug (2.5gal). you can use milk 1 gal jug if that suits you better.
from the site below:
The USDA National Nutrient Database reports that each cup of lemon juice contains 112.2 mg of ascorbic acid and 0.251 mg of pantothenic acid.

Here is a link that might be useful: how much ascorbic acid in lemon juice?

Well, if the pdf is correct, then 1/3 of your capsule should treat 5 gals. water. That might be a doable amount. But watch bottled water. It could have chloramine too.

Wow , great discussion and tips!!! Thanks so much for all the great posts . And for doing the math for me !!!

made me go and check out my water report: seems we also have chloramines, but have no idea if it's hi or normal. but also reported higher then normal levels of sodium due to road-salt run-off.
i've been noticing that some, but not all of my violets have been developing tighter then normal crowns. normally i'd think it's due to high light in my west windows. but i keep most of them way away from west windows for almost 4 months and crown are still tighter then normal.
i also got rough numbers on water alkalinity. but i never tested my PH before. just wondering...i know that in container forum they recommend adding 1tb vinegar to 1 gal for avocados/citrus for example to lower PH. could ascorbic acid be doing smth similar?

your 'growth explosion' report is intriguing - i'll try adding ascorbic acid to water of my tight-crown plants and see if i notice the dif in growth...

Hi,
The tight crowns were due to the Kordon brand water conditioner I was using, I am pretty sure, NOT to the chloramine. I was using the water conditioner to neutralize the chloramine. But it caused severely stunted growth.
The chloramine causes the outer leaves to start to turn black and die, necrosis. We moved to a new city about 1 year ago and some months. The chloramine in the new city is worse than the former city. It was very wise of you to check the water report. Often, they are hidden. With the ascorbic acid, I suggest going with the suggestions made here, not by what I did!! Joanne

yah, i am pretty sure it's not chloramines.
don't know what exactly kordon conditioner does, i'll search.
i wonder if it effects PH or alkalinity of water? i'll be looking into that. higher sodium (harder water) perhaps can effect the growth? i have been giving them less fertilizer due to lower light levels - so plain water should've flushed the medium from salts, but then may be that's why the growth slowed (less fertilizer?).
also wondering if the water became more alkaline ....effecting PH?... probably will be best to get PH strips in aquarium shop? never had a problem before though.
i'll make an experiment with vit C, though - that's fast and easy - on a couple of plants first, see if there is an improvement.
at higher PH levels the nutes are not absorbed properly. vinegar lowers the PH for a short time. so my thinking ascorbic acid might have a similar effect? ...search time....

The lot don is difficult to research. It is supposed to neutralize the ammonia molecule. Now that I have stopped using it for several months, the plants with tiny tight crowns are loosening up and growing more normally. The overall plant growth is normalizing or getting more even. Probably if I had replaced the potting medium they would have recovered sooner.
I have been using spring glacier water that has not been treated with anything. Same water we use for drinking and cooking. Joanne

i looked at a few reviews of amquel plus (kordon) - don't know if that's what you were using? it claims it does not change PH, but people say it drops it considerably (but not ALL people, so it depends on your local water formulation).
here's quote:
.. it significantly reduces your pH. If you continually add it to your tank without any water changes in hopes of maintaining proper water parameters, you will end up with a pH around 6.0-6.2.
I buffered my water with baking soda, bringing the pH back up to 7.6, but that only lasted a couple hours until it dropped back down.
...
obviously 7.6 is good for fish, but not for AV's. it seems that conditioner is formulated to keep PH neutral (which is NOT good for av's)
on the other hand 6-6.2 SHOULD be OK for AV's...(if not for fish;))
...so it gets kinda complicated, since your water plays a big role too.

also conditioner binds heavy metals (copper,zinc)!

from optimara site:
Optimum soil pH ranges from 5.8 and 6.2. A good potting soil, which has been blended especially for African Violets, will have the correct pH. However, there are other factors which can affect pH, such as concentrations of fertilizer salts and soft water. If the pH of the potting soil varies too much from 5.8 to 6.2, your African Violet will not be able to absorb the proper amount of nutrients it needs. For instance, high pH can result in a deficiency of iron, whereas low pH can result in a deficiency in phosphorus.
..[ either one will cause slow growth rate]

..later on...
slow growth might be happening due to zinc defficiency (!).

to make the long story short - you're neutralizing/removing chloramines, but also might be playing with PH and fertilizer absorbtion rates.
..later on..
do not use soft water. Soft water increases the saline content in your potting soil...

i also read that..
all municipal water systems in the western world add soda ash or sodium hydroxide or a similar alkali substance, to get the pH up to 8 or even 9!

as far as using spring water - you need to know where it comes from and it's alkalinity and PH still!
it might be soft too naturally (like in FL and many other parts of the country).
...
my head is ringing already from all this....

Here is a link that might be useful: optimara on PH

Wow! Thanks!!