chloramine testing/treatment

[DRThompson]

Does anyone test their tap water or RO water for chloramine?

Coral Springs actively uses chloramine as a disinfectant.

 

[dadummy]

I have tested in the past for chloramine with total chlorine reagents. It was a while ago but I remember testing positive and not sure the mg/l concentration before and after RO

 

[Pmj]

I don't test, but I called the water dept in Cooper City and they said they used chloramines. So I now run 5 stage, two carbon and two DI.

 

[DRThompson]

Today I used my pool kit (Lamotte colorq) to test the TAP water from my house.

Results: mg/L or ppm
Total Cl= 1.94
Free Cl= 0.91

If I subtract the two I get 1.03mg/L which I assume is my Chloramine concentration?

According to the CDC, normal disinfectant chloramine concentrations are from 1-4 mg/L
https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/public/chloramine-disinfection.html

I tested my R/O the same way and got a chloramine concentration of 0.06mg/L. I use 2 carbons back-to-back and one is a catalytic carbon filter. The filters are about 6 months old and I use (including waste/rejection water) about 500gal per month.

I'm concerned about the limits of my test kit since it looses accuracy below 1mg/L.

Does anyone have a more accurate test kit for free and total Cl- ?

I've noticed an extensive review from Bulk Reef Supply on youtube reviewing the effectiveness of carbon filters on Chloramines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEL8KvDr3-k

Has anyone else looked into this?

 

[DRThompson]

I don't test, but I called the water dept in Cooper City and they said they used chloramines. So I now run 5 stage, two carbon and two DI.

Thanks for the info:
I also run 2 carbons before the Membrane and 2 DI cartridges after. One carbon is the cheap one that is sold on Ebay and the other is a catalytic carbon(purtek plus) and expensive.

What carbons do you use? How often do you change them?

 

[Pmj]

I did try different ones like the catalytic carbon and Pentek, but since then just use the BRS universal 1 micron. They say on the site if u look at the Pentek chlorplus that they recommend their universal block over anything else for chloramine.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-universal-carbon-block-filter-1-micron.html

I change every six months, not very scientific.