Removing chloramine with ascorbic acid

My tap water has chloramine in it, so it's not safe for my aquarium. I fill a large vat with tap water in the garden and add a few pinches of ascorbic acid to break the chloramine into chlorine and ammonia. I add the vitamin C first and then fill the vat with a garden hose. How long will the hydrolysis take to work? I usually leave it for 24 hours, but wondered if it was safe to use earlier than that.

skyshrimp said:

My tap water has chloramine in it, so it's not safe for my aquarium.

You have my deep condolences.

I would expect your reaction to be fast, but it will vary with how much vit. C you add.

Are there test kits now that can measure chloramines?
Measuring things helps in problem solving and design.

I have read somewhere of other ways to do the first step. It may have involved sodium thio sulfate with inactivates many chlorine based oxidizers.

Whatever way you do that, you probably have to do something about the ammonia.
There are chemicals for sale for this (and for doing both steps at once).
A large enough biological filter would work to remove the ammonia when the chlorine is gone.
If your filter is in a nice container (filter housing), you can keep it in a chlorine free place (aquarium or ?) and move it to your treatment tank after the chlorine is removed.

Thanks BillTre,

My current aquarium set-up oxidises NH4 rapidly. I don't want to add sodium or sulphate as my fish are from the Amazon and prefer soft water. I would imagine hydroysis would occur faster if I added my portable air pump to the garden vat, but I was just trying to gauge how long hydroysis would happen in still water. The water circulates with the ascorbic acid awhile it fills up, then it's still till the next day. I was asking as I'm not sure if the 24 hour sitting period aids hydroxylation in any way. I have sensitive discus fish so I have to take precautions,

Could an RO system work for your situation?

Where I am at in Oregon has really soft water. I ran some of that water through an RO to get the water extremely soft and could do that for months. Then the filters had to be changed. If your water is hard, they won't last so long. Most of the expense was in equipment for me.

Another thing you might want to aware of is that you can get large amounts of fish purity chemicals from aquaculture suppliers, sometimes at better prices.

I have to admit this all sounds very complicated to me, water conditioners remove a variety of potentially harmful chemicals and do so very quickly, at the recommended doses any effect on the ph should be minimal, many now also include some trace elements to improve water quality. In soft water areas its worth remembering that the tap water might contain higher levels of heavy metals and other contaminates, in the UK where its still possible for old houses to have lead pipes, water companies actually add chemicals to harden the water. Using vit c and letting water stand, ideally with aeration, can have its own problems and using a conditioner makes it easier to make smaller more frequent water changes. If you don't use a conditioner, then it becomes more important to consider RO or resin based filters as the can effectively remove all sorts of contaminants.

Depending on the hardness of the water supply, there are quite a few ways to control the water hardness, the easiest are, to use Indian almond leaves or extract, something I'm a fan of as they can also help in reducing the risk of disease and there is also Blackwater tonic. These will probably reflect the processes that control water hardness in the wild or you can add some well soaked Sphagnum moss to your filter. You might have to experiment yourself with your local water, testing the parameters over time to get it right, but it would be so much simpler ultimately.

While I've kept a variety of fish that appear quite sensitive, discus have not been among them, so its entirely possible that these things may not be enough, I understand the wild caught fish are much more sensitive to the water parameters and temperature. Some species have been selectively breed for decades to improve their tolerance. These are just some thoughts really, as a breeder I very much doubt any of this information will be new, it just seems to be a great deal of work, but have fun with it.