Possible chlorine and ammonia additive issue

SadisticPeppers

SadisticPeppers

eXtreme Business
Silly question, how badly would chlorine and ammonia in municipal water affect plants?
 
I was looking at my potted Yellow & Red TS Moruga plants, wondering why after a stellar April to mid-May as far as production, they'd suddenly stop, and saw just how small and yellowish the leaves looked, when the leaf canopy on all should look much thicker for plants that are nearly 7 months old. Then I had a House moment (I admit I've been binge-watching it on NetFlix lately) that maybe there was something in my municipal water supply. I checked the municipal website and saw that they add both chlorine and ammonia to the water supply to disinfect it. Could it be that somehow someway the chlorine and/or ammonia in the water is somehow either committing nutrient lock on my potted plants, since I haven't changed how often I water and feed my plants nutes, and prior weevil issue notwithstanding (which I've dealt with via an application of neem oil spray), I've hardly noticed any new pods forming (in the single digits across nearly 30 plants since my last harvest), and almost no flowers coming out, or that it's affecting the plants some other way...
 
So does that make any sense at all? Or could it just be that my plants are taking a breather and need to rest.
 
Still, I'm looking to get a chlorine filter for my backyard area anyway, since I haven't hooked that part up to the system yet, and wanna make sure no chlorine gets to the soil in that area from the outset :)

And in case anyone's wondering, I've dealt with the weevil issue with a thorough spray of neem oil on the plants.
 
I think it would depend on quantities added by the water dept. I will use un-aged and un dechlorinated tap water to water from germination till they go out to pasture. I don't have all kinds of tests that I can run to determine the ppm of the additives, but I haven't seen anything that I couldn't explain that alarmed me either. I do know some geographic areas that in the spring will dose the water to head off bacteria blooms in the water retention ponds that supply the community.
 
are you sure they ADD ammonia to your water?
this is usually counterproductive to disinfection.
 
the only times i know of, when ammonia is added to water, is for surface water treatment, prior to distribution.
 
you probably have chloramine?
 
either way, ammonia, in water is ammonium, a plant fertilizer, so no, it should not in anyway effect your plants detrimentally. i would be suprised if this level of ammonia exceeded single digit ppm anyway.
 
chlorine disinfection will also, not in anyway harm your plants, at the levels typical of water disinfection. 
 
i have like 5 years experience working with waste water treatment, and water plants.
 
queequeg152 said:
are you sure they ADD ammonia to your water?
this is usually counterproductive to disinfection.
 
the only times i know of, when ammonia is added to water, is for surface water treatment, prior to distribution.
 
you probably have chloramine?
 
either way, ammonia, in water is ammonium, a plant fertilizer, so no, it should not in anyway effect your plants detrimentally. i would be suprised if this level of ammonia exceeded single digit ppm anyway.
 
chlorine disinfection will also, not in anyway harm your plants, at the levels typical of water disinfection. 
 
i have like 5 years experience working with waste water treatment, and water plants.
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Yes, they specifically mentioned both chlorine and ammonia separately on the municipal website.
 
elcap1999 said:
 
Yes, they specifically mentioned both chlorine and ammonia separately on the municipal website.
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Yes, they do add chlorine and ammonia separately. They also add chlorimine which is a molecularly altered ammonia /chlorine combination.
 
One thing I can do, since for chlorine, ammonia and chloramine, activated carbon seems to do the trick in removing all three, and I can get a 40-ounce container of it on Amazon for $16, which is a pretty good deal, since the filter recommends replacing the filter material inside once a growing season, but since I am basically growing the plants year-round, I'm guesstimating that's 3 times a year or so I'll need to replace the filtration medium?
 
elcap1999 said:
One thing I can do, since for chlorine, ammonia and chloramine, activated carbon seems to do the trick in removing all three, and I can get a 40-ounce container of it on Amazon for $16, which is a pretty good deal, since the filter recommends replacing the filter material inside once a growing season, but since I am basically growing the plants year-round, I'm guesstimating that's 3 times a year or so I'll need to replace the filtration medium?
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I was going to suggest that as the option that deals with the least amount of work. I know sometimes when I have time and am thinking about the chlorine in the water issue, I will draw scalding hot water into the milk jugs as chlorine in unstable and leaves water faster when heated up. Chlorimine on the other hand is rock hard stable and needs to be removed like you started through carbon filtration or chemically.
 
I was Googling possibilities, and like you said, especially the ones that involved the least amount of work, and the activated carbon option was the best one, especially the fine AC, the finer the better due to the obviously increased surface area. And what little chlorine would make it through the filter, would probably be evaporated off pretty quickly due to the water getting pretty warm from the drip irrigation tubing getting warm in the sun, and the sun also warming up the weed control fabric that's directly on top of the soil :)
 
I was actually looking at those, Swartmamaba, but the flow-rate is a little low for my liking, since with the # of plants, I'll have, I'll need something that can handle at least 1.5 GPM, preferrably 2, in case I wanna expand :)
 
elcap1999 said:
I was actually looking at those, Swartmamaba, but the flow-rate is a little low for my liking, since with the # of plants, I'll have, I'll need something that can handle at least 1.5 GPM, preferrably 2, in case I wanna expand :)
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You may want to consider a high volume vat with some form of auto shut off. will fill as you use and always maintain somewhat a constant available surplus without the wait of low gph.
 
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