Chlorine vs. Chloramine

I'm not sure how the ammonia testing would tell you anything. You can buy chlorine/chloramine test kits just like for ammonia, nitrite, etc. why not take your tapwater and test it for those? Kyle

I'm not sure how the ammonia testing would tell you anything. You can buy chlorine/chloramine test kits just like for ammonia, nitrite, etc. why not take your tapwater and test it for those? Kyle

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Pretty much yes you can. Use a simple dechlorinator (sodium Thisulfate) and then do an ammonia test afterwards. The only thing I do not know is if the ammonia test will pick up on the chloramines before you dechlorinate or not. I don't think it will though. My old AP Master Test kit came with a chlorine test, and dechlorinator with instructions to test tap water exactly as you have outlined.

Test the tap, dechlorinate and then test the dechlorinated water. Either way if you have ammonia from your tap (chloramines or otherwise) you will need to know this.

dave

If you use sodium thiosulfate to dechlorinate your water, testing for ammonia will let you know if your water company uses chloramines. Most water companies provide a consumer confidence report which tells you what they use for disinfection purposes. My water company reports that they use copper sulfate in their resorvoirs to control algae and use chloramines + chlorine and ozone. I hate the fact that they put copper in my water supply

My utility ordinarily uses chlorine, but reserves the right to use chloramine on an as-needed basis. Without the chlorine/chloramine test kit, I would have no way of knowing what is in the water right now. If it is chlorine-only, I age without additives. If it is chloramine, I add Prime.

My tap water tests negative for chlorine and positive for ammonia both before and after I use Prime.

Roan

Jungle Labs has a simple test strip that test for total and free chlorine. Just subtract the free chlorine reading from the total reading and that will tell you how many ppm chloramine if any is in your tap water. I have never been able to get freshly dechlored water to ever read positive for any ammonia. I doubt any of the commercialy available test kits are sensitive enough to get a reading unless you have a very high ppm of chloramines in your water. My readings average about .5ppm chloramines.