Which type of vitamin C to remove chlorine from tap water?

Apparently vitamin C can be used to break down and get rid of chlorine / chloramine in tap water. This sounds like a better choice for me than using R/O water. At my local drug store they had pure vitamin C powders in different forms- ascorbic acid, calcium ascorbate, and sodium ascorbate. Does anyone know which of these is best to remove chlorine / chloramine from tap water for the plants? What about lemon juice, as it's high in vit C? I know some people pH their water with it.

I already have the ascorbic acid powder, I assumed that might be better than sodium ascorbate. I don't know if sodium ascorbate is more salty, if ascorbic acid is more acidic and will swing the pH, if calcium ascorbate will have any added benefits of calcium, or if they all work exactly the same.

Will be grateful for any advice or info about this. Thanks!

“It takes about 1,000 mg of vitamin C (ascorbic acid form) to remove chloramines from 40 gallons of water.”

Just any of the bulk ascorbic acid powders you can find. I just had to reorder and I got the NOW brand for like $12/lb. I just eyeball the dosage, but for a bucket of water or thereabouts, 1/8 of a teaspoon is more than plenty. You can also buy bulk citric acid to use as PH down-it's available anyplace that carries canning supplies, so like hardware stores, walmart, and some grocery stores. Those are two of my favorite products to grow with.

Rurumo said:

Just any of the bulk ascorbic acid powders you can find. I just had to reorder and I got the NOW brand for like $12/lb. I just eyeball the dosage, but for a bucket of water or thereabouts, 1/8 of a teaspoon is more than plenty. You can also buy bulk citric acid to use as PH down-it's available anyplace that carries canning supplies, so like hardware stores, walmart, and some grocery stores. Those are two of my favorite products to grow with.

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I recently started using vitamin c powder and was pleased with how well it works. It's too easy

A piece of camden tablet,or a tiny pinch of Sodium metabisulphate will instantly neutralize chloramines,
for eg I use literally a pinch into 30 lires of water for brewing, very cheap from a homebrew shop.

Can't post links but the Wliki Sodium metabisulfite has

"It is used in the water treatment industry to quench residual chlorine."

for the sceptics.

H.T.H.

Instape said:

A piece of camden tablet,or a tiny pinch of Sodium metabisulphate will instantly neutralize chloramines,
for eg I use literally a pinch into 30 lires of water for brewing, very cheap from a homebrew shop.

Can't post links but tbe Wliki Sodium metabisulfite has

"It is used in the water treatment industry to quench residual chlorine."

for the sceptics.

H.T.H.

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Do you get taller plants than normal when using it?

I don't use it for my plants I have an Reverse osmosis filter for them.

The chemistry is sound,the amount needed is tiny,(and cheap) I don't think it adds anything,just reacts with Chloramines to neutralize them.

It is definitely non toxic at these doses , 100's of pints (Beer)made and consumed over the years.

Yeah, I also think that Ascorbic acid is more useful.

Just use a rv water filter. I use boogie blue. I'll water straight from my water hose. Look up ten pounds on one plant in YouTube. If dude can do that I think it's okay to use. I live in southern new mexico with shitty tap everyone buys water from water dispensaries. When I upped my plant count that got to be too much cost wise and carrying all those 5 gallon water jugs back and forth, so I bought a 6 stage under sink ro system. Last spring I bought some cheaper ones than boogie blue they worked fine. Never looked back, I grow organically so I don't even ph anything. I'll check occasionally with a blue lab soil pen. Autos you'll never tell a difference, I'll run them 8 to 12 plants at a time perpetually outdoors. Photos will have a elevated ph 4 months in I've read 7.3 but didn't show any issues. If you reuse your soil dont do it immediately let it sit in a bin or tumbling composter add organic matter ( manure, amendments, veggies and yard waste etc.) and let the microbes reset soil ph before use again. I'll set soil for 4 to 6 months before reuse. Also keep starter soil separate seedlings dont need much nutrient. I'll also throw worms from my bin in there to leave castings and help with the organic matter

Decades of growing cannabis and other plants. None of them have given a damn about the small amounts of chlorine/chloramines in tap water. Indoor, outdoor, none care. If I can use tap water to make a sourdough starter then it's not going to hurt your plants or destroy all the microbes.

Plants use chlorine so I don't understand why people are so determined to remove the negligible amount that is in tap water. Same thing with chloramines. Not enough to have any negative impact on your plants or kill off the microbes in your soil. Millions of people all over the world water plants with tap water and they all grow. Only in the cannabis growing world do people make a big deal out of it. Cannabis is just another plant.

No need to be worrying about neutralizing anything in your water with vitamin C. The only time you should need to use RO water is if you have extremely hard water or are using well water. Except for rare instances tap water is perfectly fine to use straight from the tap. You might care about the chlorine but the plant doesn't. In fact the plant uses it. Many people including myself intentionally add chlorine when growing sterile hydro. I did for years. It didn't hurt the plants at all.

Just to clarify English tap water is suitable to use "as is"regarding Chlorine/amides no amendment needed,
I filter 'cos the Cal/Mag ratio in my area.

Maybe y'alls water I've killed plants not letting tap atleast sit. Different locations have different quality of water.

But it can't be able to use for plants.

@xtsho Thank you for the info, as someone with experience I'll take your word for it. I've heard many people say the same thing. That said, If it's not going to hurt anything, I'll probably still go ahead and use the ascorbic acid even if it's possibly pointless. Only because I grow cacti and other plants outdoors, and the tap water has a noticeable detrimental effect on them. The difference between the health and growth of the plants outside using our tap water vs rain water really is like night and day. Whether that's the chlorine/chloramine or something else, I have no idea. And whether the negative effects of our tap water I have observed translates to growing with coco, or is simply a soil issue, I also have no idea.

I don't want to use the RO water, as coco has enough CalMag needs as it is. The nutrient line I'll be using (Hy-Gen, two-part cocogrow & cocobloom, plus additives https://www.hygen.com.au/product_cat/nutrients/) has Cal and Mag in the base nutes, and also in some of the other additives, but doesn't have a separate CalMag product, and I don't really want to use one from a different line. So I'll be wanting whatever extra calcium is in the tap, as for Mag I have plenty of epsom salts I'm sure will do the trick. I'm mainly worried about CalMag issues in the seedling stage, I'm sure it will be fine later on when I can feed them properly with these nutes.

GroBud said:

Maybe y'alls water I've killed plants not letting tap atleast sit. Different locations have different quality of water.

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If it killed your plants, the water, it will kill you. I gotta say bs unless your in a third world country or flint MI. You or something else killed them not the water imo

Why would you need to add anything? You can just put water in a bucket and leave it out for a bit and the chlorine will evaporate away..

Because chlorine is considered to be extremely volatile, it will evaporate without much issue. If you don't want to spend money to get rid of chlorine in your water, the chlorine will eventually evaporate if you simply leave the water to stand.

People commonly water plants with pond water, well water, probably stagnant swamp water guerrilla style ….. if your tap kills plants you probably have a huge suit

bam0813 said:

People commonly water plants with pond water, well water, probably stagnant swamp water guerrilla style ….. if your tap kills plants you probably have a huge suit

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Funny you just said this lol.. I water with my well water straight from the hose and my neighbor waters his plants from his pond

Chlorine will kill microbes in your soil but they rebound at such a fast rate you can recover from it.. If you are running full organic and have chlorine in your water then you may want fill up buckets of water beforehand and let it sit out to get rid of the chlorine..

I use well staight from a submersible pump no filter, no problems infact they seem to love it