Chlorine v. chloramines

[Obsidian]

What is the difference? I called the local water treatment plant to ask, and the guy said that they use chlorine. But then he said that you can't 'treat' chloramines... the chlorine bond is two molecules of chlorine. Chloramine is the end result when that chlorine bond is broken by exposure to O2.

Now I am totally confused. Any chemistry majors out there who can explain this?

Obsidian

 

[OrionGirl]

Pretty scary, but the utility guy you talked to is a dork. Chloramine is consists of chlorine and ammonia bonded together. The bond can be broken by a variety of conditioners (Prime, Amquel, etc). This leaves you with chlorine and ammonia, and the ammonia then needs to be treated to form ammonium, which is unstable (ammonium is ammonia with an extra ion--in high pH, it's constantly swapping those ions around from the water), non-toxic, and bio-available. Chloramine is very stable--unlike chlorine, it won't gas off under agitation.

 

[gsk177]

I think you've gust found your chemistry major

 

[bigfishguy]

yes u want chloramines not chlorine..
chlorine is for pools
chloramine is for fish tanks..

 

[Raskolnikov]

:troll: :troll: :troll:
You do not want either chlorine or chloramine in your fish tanks if you want to keep healthy, living fish.

 

[bigfishguy]

chloramine u want for plants....
plants you want for fish.......
big happy naturaly cycling tank...

 

[bigfishguy]

its what orion girl said that u dont want.....

chlorine and amonia......

these two boned together helps plants photosynthesise more effectivly

 

[Darkblade48]

chloramine u want for plants....
plants you want for fish.......
big happy naturaly cycling tank...

It's true that plants will use ammonium over nitrates, as that is their preference, but even in small quantities ammonia (the conjugate base, assuming you're looking at it as NH4+ + H2O <--> NH3 + H3O+) is extremly toxic.

Thus, I wouldn't want chloramines in my aquarium, even if it was planted.

 

[bigfishguy]

the thing im trying to say is chloramine is safe in the bonded form.....
not when broken down.....
that leaves u chlorine which is poisen to fish and amonia which is poisen to fish...

now if u have a planted tank....
the plants photosynthesise cycle uses these molecules up.....
taking chlorine molecules from amonia molecules and vise versa....
the remaining molecules attch them selves to others..
in the case of a planted tank.....
the chlorine molecules jump from 1 ammounia mole cule to the next as the ammounia molecule is being ripped away....
when a plants photosynthesis cycle is done at night time it produces ammounias which starts all over again during the day as soon as the lights are on.....

THIS IS A REASON WHY UR PH WILL BE DIFFERENT AT NIGHT WHEN LIGHTS GO OUT AND MORNING WHEN LIGHTS GO ON...

CHECK IT OUT...

 

[RTR]

Sorry, but all I can see is double-talk. Neither chlorine nor chloramine is beneficial to your tank.