Chloramine and Compost Teas

You guys have been very helpful with my first few grows and I appreciate you all so I figured its time for me to contribute on here instead of just asking questions. But bear with me this is a long one.

Lately I have been doing as much research as I can on AACT. During my trip down the rabbit hole I was able to answer the vast majority of my questions and got enough knowledge to do experiments of my own but there was one thing that always had me coming back. And that was chloramine in my water. I have not gone out of my way enough to get a microscope to check the effectiveness of my teas by checking the presence of microbes (though I'm thinking about it) so I can never really be sure if I'm just bubbling dead bacteria or not. Thus began my research into chloramine. There are pretty much no studies of this in application to growing. But I was able to find and article that sited certain growers who said they notice a difference when using chloraminated water like stunded growth, deficiencies, and overall poor health. Which to me sounds like the symptoms of dead soil. I know for sure my city uses chloramine to treat the tap water, so I had to figure out how to get it out of there so as to not kill all my little guys I'm trying to brew.

I already had a 5 stage RO system, and while they can remove some chloramine, the properties of it make it very difficult to remove with traditional filters (forgot to mention chloramine doesn't evaporate like chlorine does). So this is where the fun science begins. I found several articles about chloramine decay in the presence of organic material in water. With natural organic material (NOM) present around a concentration of 3ppm, chloramine begins to work to break down NOM, as is its purpose as a disinfectant. And as it reacts with natural nitrogen and carbon it turns into organic chloramines and other disinfectant byproducts(THM's). The resulting organic chloramines and byproducts, like chlorine, can be completely evaporated from water and the ones that don't are now ineffective as a disinfectant. To make this overly complicated post a little more simplified, by applying organic material to your water (molasses) and then aerating for 2-24 hours, in theory, should remove most of, if not all chloramine from your water, making it a perfect breeding ground for your little guys.

If you made it this far thanks for reading. I hope this information can help some of you as I spent a lot of time worrying about it myself. Sorry this one was so long, if anyone has any questions I can site all articles and sources but I'm leaving it out for length reasons.
 

Boatguy

Well-Known Member
I watched some vid from an urban gardener in canada that actually sent his samples for testing after spraying with tap. The tests showed no less microbes between the control group and the straight tap group.. If the amount of disinfectant in there was high enough it probably wouldnt be fit for drinking
 

loco41

Well-Known Member
You guys have been very helpful with my first few grows and I appreciate you all so I figured its time for me to contribute on here instead of just asking questions. But bear with me this is a long one.

Lately I have been doing as much research as I can on AACT. During my trip down the rabbit hole I was able to answer the vast majority of my questions and got enough knowledge to do experiments of my own but there was one thing that always had me coming back. And that was chloramine in my water. I have not gone out of my way enough to get a microscope to check the effectiveness of my teas by checking the presence of microbes (though I'm thinking about it) so I can never really be sure if I'm just bubbling dead bacteria or not. Thus began my research into chloramine. There are pretty much no studies of this in application to growing. But I was able to find and article that sited certain growers who said they notice a difference when using chloraminated water like stunded growth, deficiencies, and overall poor health. Which to me sounds like the symptoms of dead soil. I know for sure my city uses chloramine to treat the tap water, so I had to figure out how to get it out of there so as to not kill all my little guys I'm trying to brew.

I already had a 5 stage RO system, and while they can remove some chloramine, the properties of it make it very difficult to remove with traditional filters (forgot to mention chloramine doesn't evaporate like chlorine does). So this is where the fun science begins. I found several articles about chloramine decay in the presence of organic material in water. With natural organic material (NOM) present around a concentration of 3ppm, chloramine begins to work to break down NOM, as is its purpose as a disinfectant. And as it reacts with natural nitrogen and carbon it turns into organic chloramines and other disinfectant byproducts(THM's). The resulting organic chloramines and byproducts, like chlorine, can be completely evaporated from water and the ones that don't are now ineffective as a disinfectant. To make this overly complicated post a little more simplified, by applying organic material to your water (molasses) and then aerating for 2-24 hours, in theory, should remove most of, if not all chloramine from your water, making it a perfect breeding ground for your little guys.

If you made it this far thanks for reading. I hope this information can help some of you as I spent a lot of time worrying about it myself. Sorry this one was so long, if anyone has any questions I can site all articles and sources but I'm leaving it out for length reasons.
So definitely not a source of great knowledge/experience, but I think you nailed it about the organic material breaking down the chloramine. Like @Boatguy said too, with such a small amount of chloramine it can only do so much. I haven't brewed a tea in a while, but when I did, I used straight city tap water with chloramine. Again, no expert here, but I think they were successful brews as the plants always reacted positively to them. I also water my soil with straight tap water too. I do mess around with some other inputs in the water on occasion but I try for pretty much water only.

I remember reading somewhere that molasses helps to breakdown the chloramine by itself, so maybe bubbling just the molasses for a bit would give you "cleaner" water to then add the compost source. If you use dry amendments in your teas, maybe adding those in a bit earlier too would help those break down some to be a more available source of food for the microbes too. Also, think I remember reading that bubbling the kelp for 24 hours prior to brewing the tea actually helped the microbe population in some way.

Again, no expert at all on any of this, but think you'll be just fine if you choose to just use tap water. I think any damage done from the initial chloramine being active would be minimal in the end result as it still has ample time to multiply.
 

VILEPLUME

Well-Known Member
I watched some vid from an urban gardener in canada that actually sent his samples for testing after spraying with tap. The tests showed no less microbes between the control group and the straight tap group.. If the amount of disinfectant in there was high enough it probably wouldnt be fit for drinking
Link to that vid? It sounds true but shit I want to see it.
 

Growitpondifarm

Well-Known Member

This guy isnt an easy watch
Watched the same video. I think the cholarmine deal in the cannabis world is way blown out of proportion. I think the bigger issue with some municipal tap water is the other stuff present in your tap. Think about all the salt deposits on fixtures, I believe these calcium build ups can have a more
Detrimental effect on growing plants, especially in small containers. I like to water with tap like once a week, I use rainwater for everything else including teas. With all that being said, I’ve had good results brewing teas in tap water with no prep . But like OP I haven’t looked at any of my teas under microscope so hard to say 100% that the teas are very active, just going off visual observations of the plant
 

Growitpondifarm

Well-Known Member
Wow that is crazy, blew my mind on letting chlorine in tap water evaporate. I wonder how many other BS growing rules we follow?
a bunch. But I think think as legalization comes on line there is less and less reliance on forum folklore along with more horticulture scientist entering the field. People who have zero knowledge of all the online wives tales and rely solely on data and science. Also,wait till people realize you can get all the ferts that cannabis co sell at ridiculous prices at any ag store for fraction of the cost. Only difference is there isn’t some stupid name or colorful graphic
 

stonerlibrarian

Active Member
I use tap water for watering my plants, but I still make tea with water from my rain barrel. I don't know how scientific it is, but I have a huge rain barrel and it's good to know the microbes won't have any chloramine or anything like that inhibiting their growth during the brewing process.
 

Boatguy

Well-Known Member
I use tap water for watering my plants, but I still make tea with water from my rain barrel. I don't know how scientific it is, but I have a huge rain barrel and it's good to know the microbes won't have any chloramine or anything like that inhibiting their growth during the brewing process.
I really need a rain barrel. Got the garage and house gutter on either side of my veggie garden. Been saying it for a few years now
 
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