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Chlorine and Chilis

W

WalkingStickMan

Hi everyone,

I live in Philly, a city that is noted for its high levels of chlorine. When inside, I give my peppers distilled or spring ater most of the time, however once they go outside I plan on using water straight from the hose. This is my first summer here, so I don't have any experience with other plants using this water, seeing how they fare, etc.

Anyone have any advice regarding this practice?

Thanks!
 
put the water in a 5 gallon bucket and leave it outside for 2 days before you water with it. Or you can put the water in the said bucket, buy an air pump and a 5 inch air stone, and run that air stone in the bucket for about 5 hours. That will kill the chlorine. You can also buy a filtration deal that screws onto your hose bib, and that will filter the chlorine out
 
Noob alert! I am not an expert!

Chlorine in the amounts you are talking about does not harm plants. People add chlorine to their hydro systems to keep it sterile.
It might kill beneficial microbes in the soil. I don't know about that. If you are using inorganic fertilizer i wouldn't worry. I compost and occasionally use fertilizer. I don't worry about chlorine. I do worry about salts and alkilinity

My guess, and that is all it is, is that you can't wipe out the good microbes once established.
 
unless you are feeding your plants 10+mg/l dont worry about it. here in texas TCEQ regulations allow a maximum of 2mg/l of free chlorine, i assume philly is similar. in all reality by the time it hits your faucet its likely closer to .2mg/l. be more worried about alkalinity and other minerals.

you can buy a standard dpd reagant pool chlorine testing kit for like 10 bucks if you are in need of accurate information. alot of time what people attribute to high chlorine content (chlorine smell scale etc) has largely nothing to to with chlorine concentration. some municipalities use chloramines... some use other chemicals to sequester metals like iron with zinc orthophosphate systems... poly phosphate systems...etc. in surface water treatment plants liquid amonia is sometimes injected..

all this takes place in small ass quantites however, much to small to hurt plants. even small waterplants can pump out like 300GPM of water, but those small chemical dosing pumps? they are like 100 gallons per day rated.
 
WalkingStickMan said:
Hi everyone,

I live in Philly, a city that is noted for its high levels of chlorine. When inside, I give my peppers distilled or spring ater most of the time, however once they go outside I plan on using water straight from the hose. This is my first summer here, so I don't have any experience with other plants using this water, seeing how they fare, etc.

Anyone have any advice regarding this practice?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I noticed my peppers were not liking the water straight from the hose, so I was having my husband fill up 5gal water bottles at the water dispensers in front of grocery stores. Let me tell you, that got old for him real quick!! lol

I highly recommend this RV water filter attachment for the hose, I have one in my front and back yard now. It works great for removing the chlorine and other crap in the water. If you look at the reviews people who do home beer brewing use this as well, I also brew compost teas, so knowing that home brewers use this was very promising.

Can't beat this price, filters up to 2000 gallons, free shipping and no tax.
http://www.amazon.co...83&sr=8-1-spell

Hope that helped! :)

Melissa
 
in making Compost Teas it is crucial that you get out ALL of the chlorine. If you don't you WILL kill off any bacterial colonies that you worked so hard to achieve!
 
Thanks everyone for the responses! Sounds like slightly different approaches for a lot of people, so maybe I'll have to do some experimenting. If my plants start to show signs that they are taking too well to the hose water, I'll take measures to purify.

Thanks again all, and happy growing!!
 
cory_huck said:
in making Compost Teas it is crucial that you get out ALL of the chlorine. If you don't you WILL kill off any bacterial colonies that you worked so hard to achieve!
Click to expand...

Trust me I know this, one of the main reasons I let the water aerate without the ingredients for a day prior to starting the tea. But this filter is used by home brewers without any problems, they need much purer water so I am confident this filter does the job.

Thx for the input!
 
Melissa77754 said:
Trust me I know this, one of the main reasons I let the water aerate without the ingredients for a day prior to starting the tea. But this filter is used by home brewers without any problems, they need much purer water so I am confident this filter does the job.

Thx for the input!
Click to expand...

It does just that! Good advise for him! I was just agreeing with ya!
 
Also note that different jurisdictions treat with different substances. Chlorine dissapates quickly (as Cory said, usually no more than 48 hours), but chloramine will stick around a lot longer. Not sure if its relative stability isn't as harmful to the microbes. I'm ignorant on that front.
 
i find it very hard to believe that such an insanely small amount of chlorine such as is typically found in tap water would somehow sterilize every single microbe in your compost tea/pile of w/e you are talking about. aerating water may be 'lore' so to speak but that does not make it valid.

i would bet a sandwich that you would need far far far more chlorine than is available in tap water to wipe out w/e organisms are in your compost tea. it may kill off a small amount, but id wager its insignificant.
hypochlorous acid will react with pretty much anything that has a loose electron, it would be spent long long before it can come close to wiping out any colonies.

somewhat apples and oranges i suppose, but what about those giant crap tanks burried under many peoples yards? septic systems get similar doses of hypochlorous acid everytime someone washes their clothing with bleach.

am i wrong? id appraciate some info if i am, ill read anything. im always eager to learn something new.

edit: super bad spelling
 
queequeg152 said:
i find it very hard to believe that such an insanely small amount of chlorine such as is typically found in tap water would somehow sterilize every single microbe in your compost tea/pile of w/e you are talking about. aerating water may be 'lore' so to speak but that does not make it valid.

i would bet a sandwich that you would need far far far more chlorine than is available in tap water to wipe out w/e organisms are in your compost tea. it may kill off a small amount, but id wager its insignificant.
hypochlorous acid will react with pretty much anything that has a loose electron, it would be spent long long before it can come close to wiping out any colonies.

somewhat apples and oranges i suppose, but what about those giant crap tanks burried under many peoples yards? septic systems get similar doses of hypochlorous acid everytime someone washes their clothing with bleach.

am i wrong? id appraciate some info if i am, ill read anything. im always eager to learn something new.

edit: super bad spelling
Click to expand...

Cool questions. Those septic systems you described are, mostly, anaerobic, so there's that part of it. But I'm pretty sure bleach would kill aerobic or anaerobic microbes if used in largish volume. Dunno.
 
My potted plants absolutely hated water from the hose... My in ground plants had no problems with it. The difference was the pots were getting drenched with the hose where as the in ground plants got a gradual drip irrigation. I also had to resort to using 3 5 gallon drinking water containers. I would fill them up with the hose after watering the pots and they would get to sit 24 to 36 hours before I used them again. The plants really did much better after I switched to doing that. I thought the high PH of my water was the bigger issue, but after seeing the results of just letting the water sit I am not so sure now. I don't think letting the water stand alters the PH so the chlorine or something else that dissipates by resting the water made the difference in my case. That filter looks interesting I think I will try it this season.
 
millions of people drink it, I wouldn't think it could kill your plants, unless you drown em. After I bought my moisture gauge I realized I was watering my pots WAY TO MUCH.
 
Beaglestorm said:
My potted plants absolutely hated water from the hose... My in ground plants had no problems with it. The difference was the pots were getting drenched with the hose where as the in ground plants got a gradual drip irrigation. I also had to resort to using 3 5 gallon drinking water containers. I would fill them up with the hose after watering the pots and they would get to sit 24 to 36 hours before I used them again. The plants really did much better after I switched to doing that. I thought the high PH of my water was the bigger issue, but after seeing the results of just letting the water sit I am not so sure now. I don't think letting the water stand alters the PH so the chlorine or something else that dissipates by resting the water made the difference in my case. That filter looks interesting I think I will try it this season.
Click to expand...

I use an old ice chest for my 'venting' process, if that helps with your efficiency, if not your home's curb appeal. Mine are much better this year than direct apps from the hose (among about a hundred other changes variables). Although I won't be able to keep up once the temps start upward.

Prehensile said:
millions of people drink it, I wouldn't think it could kill your plants, unless you drown em. After I bought my moisture gauge I realized I was watering my pots WAY TO MUCH.
Click to expand...

I would be *stunned* if BS was overwatering out there in the moonscape. :)
 
I was looking into this. I've been making worm teas lately and its a pain to put the water in a giant bucket and wait for chlorine to go away. I use a aquarium de-chloramine drops to remove that bad stuff too. 2000 gallons does not seem too much. I found one for 25,000 gallons @ 89 bux on amazon. Has anyone tried or heard of BMS Garden Hose Filter Single?

http://www.amazon.co...34349809&sr=1-2
 
According to one of my college teachers, the chlorine that is used today does not fall out of solution as easily as what was used in years past. So that means placing water in a bucket or other holding tank does not remove the chlorine.

It is a concern for greenhouse growers and they use systems to get around that if they are on city water.
 
your talking about chloramines, its not terribly common, but it is used.
most common for large water systems is chlorine dioxide.... which is just a gaseous form of chlorine its the cheapest... but its dangerous, the chlorine room must be vented, and an emergency respiration system must be on hand... or TCEQ will send you a violation notice.
small systems tend to use NaClO.

chloramine treated water reduces potential/carcenogenic biproducts you can see with regular treatment systems, it will also last much longer in a water system. ive never seen a chloromine treated water system personally.
 
cory_huck said:
Thats wrong bro. You can wipe them out QUICK!
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That seems a a little much. You are saying that all the good microbes in soil die if I spray the soil with water. I think surface tension alone would protect a few. Maybe some air gaps? If I have a smoking compost pile and spray with water it will stop smoking? really?


eh maybe
 
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