chloramine and chlorine water disinfection

daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)

8 years ago

I find myself a bit puzzled about the effects of common city water disinfectants (chlorine, and chloramines in particular). Although chemical-fearing people seem to dread them, it's really not obvious that they do anything bad to plants in soil. I understand that beer and wine made with water so treated can come up with off-flavors, and aquatic animals don't like them. I believe that hydroponic gardeners avoid them too. There are various treatments (e.g. campden tablets) that remove those additives.

But you'd have to believe that when those treatments hit soil, they get disabled. Why? Because if you water your microbe-rich garden beds or bacterially activated compost piles with them, if they worked thoroughly as disinfectants, you'd end up with a lot of dead dirt. Doesn't happen. I guess it might be that they get neutralized as they kill small amounts of soil bacteria, leaving the rest behind.

So although I'm hardly likely to wean myself off of city water (and gardeners down here use a LOT of it) it would not be unreasonable to use, say, distilled or treatment-neutralized water on seedlings, and it's high time for seedlings. Anyone do that, and actually see any difference, compared to treated water? Please, I don't need to hear from rain water evangelists, unless they've actually done the experiment. Any soil chemists out there who might comment?

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Comments (6)

lgteacher
8 years ago
This may interest you. It explains a little about how chlorine binds to soil particles.

Chlorinated water and lawns
rgreen48
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Everything I've read says that if you are concerned, just leave the water in an open container and a majority of the chlorine will gas-off in a few hours. If you do, it's a good practice to shake or stir the water before using it to help replace the oxygen which also off-gases. Many hydroponic growers use the same type of air pumps as used in fish tanks to oxygenate their water supplies.
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Firstly, that organic mix you described sounds horrible in regards to drainage, so I suspect you were having some issues because of that. Also, a soil like that would not allow too much air into the root zone, which is another problem. As for your 5-1-1 mix, I don't want to steal Al's thunder here, but you're going to have to describe your mix, to make sure you've got the right particle size and such. Also, you have to describe your fertilizing routine, including what kind, how much you use, and how often. Also, in my experiences, if you let your mix dry out too much, it will turn hydrophobic, and actually repel your watering attempts. The top will appear wet, but dig an inch down, and it's bone dry. I seriously doubt the problem is pH or chloramine. Also, wherever you heard that organic growing will make your tomatoes taste best, was likely a biased source. Many people grow organically for other reasons, but in my experience, taste is not effected. Also, save the organics for regular gardens, not containers. Organics and containers go together like mouse & snake, it appears ok for a little while, then at some point, things go sour. Joe
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I have an old chem degree, which admittedly I haven't used much or recently. Based on that though, I would think that chloramines go away pretty fast when they meet a lot of organics. That's why we can drink tap water :-) I did find this: "There are no studies evaluating the fate of inorganic chloramines on/in soils. Based on related information on fate associated with sediments and surface waters, inorganic chloramines would experience chemical reaction with particulates, volatilization and photolysis at the soil surface and chemical reaction and adsorption within the soil matrix. Inorganic chloramine may oxidize surface layer soil organic matter (Bodek et al., 1988), particularly materials composed of organic nitrogen compounds, such as alkyl sulfides, amines and some nitrogen heterocyclic aromatics (e.g., see Christman et al., 1983; Scully and White, 1992). Zellmer et al. (1987) speculated that the components of a fine-silty clay loam soil had completely bound or inactivated sodium hypochlorite in the C-8 mixture (15% perchloroethylene, 8% calcium hypochlorite, 1% emulsifier and 76% water). They simulated spill conditions and found no residual chlorine concentrations at any depth of a 68-cm soil core after 144 hours using the starch-iodine method of analysis." So they are saying that even in concentrated spill conditions it goes away fast. (When I made beer I am afraid I let the wort kill the chloramine.) More at the link with many environmental half-life citations. Here is a link that might be useful: Assessment Report for Inorganic Chloramines
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Ditto on "The dog prefers warm rainwater with leaves in it over fresh cool tap water. Wonder what he knows." My cats do the same, even with well water! Something that I have noticed in my shared garden over the years, about public vs well water. The garden is between me and Dads house. We watered from my Dads house on one side, public water, well water on my side. Less hose to run since it was in between. Pretty much the same amount of water from both sources. We both worked the complete garden, the only difference was the water. The public water side never done as well. When he had open heart surgery and could no longer work the garden, I started watering completely with well water. I saw a big improvement over the formally public water side. He died August of last year and I bought his home and land. Since I'm not living in the house and had to pay for 1,000 gallons public water, whether I used it or not,I went back to our old system this spring. I had a better garden on the well water side this year. It is most likely due to the extra minerals from the well water. OR! Could it be the chlorine????
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I feel your pain, my county's water also adds chloramine. To top it off they also add the lovely chemical fluorosilic acid (Fluoride), which comes from Florida's phosphate fertilizer industry. (But, thats another story, I just had to vent) Luckily I have a well for my irrigation system. For my drinking water I use a Triple Undersink Water filter system. Filter 1 CGAC For reduction of chloramine- Filter 2 - DeFluoridation, Filter 3 KDF/GAC for further reduction of chlorine, ammonia and over 500 other contaminates. I purchased this unit for under $200. Most high quality home water filters will only reduce the amount of chloramines in the water. There are some filters that will completely remove them, but they are costly. The only single media filter I could find to greatly reduce chloramine is a CGAC Catalytic Granular Activated Carbon. As with most water filters the flow rate is important for effective reduction of contaminates. The longer chloramine is in contact with the media, the greater the reduction. (ex, 1.0 gallon per minute) With that in mind I highly doubt a garden hose filter on full blast is going to be effective at reducing any contaminates. I like the rain water idea but, If you plan on making your own as suggested above I would go with the C-GAC media (see link below) and zeolite. This filter would only be effective if used at a very low flow rate. Here is a link that might be useful: CATALYTIC GRANULAR ACTIVATED CARBON
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nancyjane_gardener
8 years ago
When I was a kid and had all those goldfish. I would leave a pitcher of water out the night before cleaning the tank. There. That's my scientific answer. Nancy
daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
Original Author
8 years ago
That's true for regular chlorine, that just letting it sit makes it go away. I'm pretty sure that's not true for chloramine, though. It may be that letting it sit in full sun will help, though.

lgtecher, thanks for that reference. That makes a lot of sense about how soil makes a difference in the efficacy of these disinfectants.

I'm led to assume then that it's the soil that renders this stuff pretty benign for plants. It does make me wonder, though, whether soaking seeds before planting really ought to be done in untreated water. (Having just soaked a bunch of Charantais seeds in plain water!)
daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
Original Author
8 years ago
I should say that my water system uses chloramines, as about a quarter of U.S. water systems do. There are some advantages. The way chloramines work is that they produce chlorine gradually, so you can vent the water all you want to remove chlorine gas, but when you're done, there will still be more chlorine being produced. With conventionally chlorinated water, just letting it sit a while will fix it. Now that I do a little research, I see that chlorine in water, however it gets there, is really recognized as a "bad thing" for hydroponics.
daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
Original Author
8 years ago
Well, FWIW I now see repeated references to "Studies have shown that chloramines hurt the germination of seeds" . Now I can't find the original research, and everyone is no doubt just quoting everyone else because everyone uses the same words, but I'm going to start doing my seed soaking at least in distilled water. If your water is chlorinated directly, you might just let it sit for a day or two to degas before doing that soaking.

chloramine and chlorine water disinfection

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lgteacher

rgreen48

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chloramine and chlorine water disinfection

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