chloramine is the devil bobby boucher!!!!!

sorry about the waterboy reference but it makes sense kinda. after 30 some odd seedlings and mountains of reading and tearing my hair out i might have actually figured this out.. maybe.
every seedling i have started and yeah it is really around 30 or so since early november has developed yellowing and rapid chlorotic/necrotic leaves within 2 - 3 weeks ultimately killing them all.
No matter what i try the perk up and then get worse and die off. always showing signs of some kind of lockout..every one of them. its been driving me crazy. im religious about the ph so i fix that in every gallon of water i use since it comes in at 9.2. no matter what soil, how i mix it. same result every time. i read a thread about someones ph constantly changing after they had adjusted it and didnt add anything and the ph changed/reverted. i hadnt really considered it but i checked the batch i had made 4 or 5 days ago and ill be damned if it hadnt started climbing back up from the 6.5 i adjusted it to anywhere from 7.4 to 8+!!! i knew it wasnt the soil well at least not the ocean forest as long as the water going in is in the 6's it will run off in the 6's, miracle grow on the other hand is all over the place...cuz its crap. the one constant was the water so i checked the state and local water reports and found out that they started using chloramine instead of chlorine about 8 years ago. id heard about chloramine but didnt give it much thought....

the problem with chloramine is its really hard to get rid of, its ammonia and chlorine mixed so it lasts much longer.....anybody else remember that mixing those 2 was bad juju from 7th grade chem class? it doesnt evaporate like chlorine, you cant boil it out, it wont distill out. the ammonia has to be separated from the chlorine to convert the chorine into whats called "free chlorine" as opposed to "combined chlorine" so it can be filtered. that requires charcoal block filters and a chem filter that will also remove the ammonia byproduct. i dont know much about ro yet i couldnt get past the 2 or 3 to 1 waste ratio but i guess as long as it has charcoal filters and i think i read a membrane between 1 and 5 microns it should take it all out.

chloramine as far i can tell has no direct effect on the plants but i am pretty sure it has been the cause of the ph problems. and that makes sense really. its purpose is not only as a disinfectant but a ph adjuster as well.
its going to be very difficult to beat something thats intended to keep LARGE volumes of water exposed to rain that meters in at about 4.4( Weezard our volcano is always spewing, unlike yours which is terrifying and awe-inspiring ours is hideous, man made and ghastly) at a constant ph level with much of anything...it works so well i could calibrate my meter with my tap water..9.2 every time +/- one point.
i have to guess it builds up in the soil, im sure it must, thats going to wreak havoc on the plants since the soil ph is going change with every watering or feeding.

right now im skating by with my latest crop by waiting until the soil is almost desert like before i give them water, but i think its only prolonging the build up. the plants are teetering on the verge of yellowing after watering and greening up once the soil starts to dry out.
so now i guess i need to look into filters, not gonna do ro i just cant get around the waste. buying water is out of the question at least for the foreseeable future. anyone using filters that can gimme an idea of whats a decent one?

Whats the source of your seeds?

other than somewhere in northern mexico i dont really know. if youre thinking genetics, im skeptical only because im using the same seeds as a friend of mine who has no problems like this at all but he does have a well and filters his water as it comes in to the house. that and i have germinated just a shitload of seeds in the past few months. as long the ph of the solution is between 6.2 and 7 they germinate every time and start growing really nice. the first time they get watered, and ill admit the first few i was watering too often but i corrected that and they still have the exact same issue at about 2 weeks. the more wet the soil is the faster it happens. i have used just about every soil i can find...and it being winter that doesnt leave much. so far foxfarms ocean forest has worked the best. seed starter, light warrior doesnt matter as soon as they get water they start getting the signs of yellowing at the tips and edges. let them dry long enough and that seems to back off they green up hit them with water again and thats just water i havent had any get to the point where i can add nutes yet, and the yellow starts to show again. everything seems to point to the water and from everything i have read chloramine appears to be the most viable culprit. ill have a better idea after i do some run off checks to see if the soil ph is creeping up like i think it is.

Why are you willing to buy a filter but not bottled water? A gallon of distilled water is less than a buck and better for your plants. Go buy distilled water. If you're problem really is water, this will solve your problem.

because with a filter i get 300-500 gallons for about $35 thats like .11 per gallon. distilled is about .85 a gallon, plus the cost of my gas because it isnt right next door and i drive a big pick up. and no i wouldnt be getting 300 gallons at a pop but even that would ultimately be cheaper. as dry as it is here in the winter i go thru a fair amount of water anyway i'd be at the store all the time. i am trying to make sure thats what it is. im switching to bottled for now until i can get a decent filter. i also have three pots of soil im checking the run off. one with plain tap but ph'd water, one with filtered(crap brita but it lowered the ph by one point) ph'd water and one with distilled ph'd water. if im right the one with tap water should see the ph increase over time. we'll see tho.

This link might be helpful: http://boards.cannabis.com/current-e...ml#post2241676 :p pr

PP makes a good point.

And while I don't think Chloramine is the culprit it does seem that water is the key here.
I'd just buy a couple large dustbins, line 'em with plastic, chop into a downspout, and wait for rain.
Even highly acidic rainwater beats groundwater north of PH8.

It no rain there?
Electric distillers are available, but costly to feed.
If you have roof space, I'd suggest a solar still for low rainfall areas.
They are easy to build. Google it.

As I stated, Chloramine is not the bad guy here.
It can kill fish, but it actually seems beneficial to my plants. (kills waterborne pathogens)
However, that's assuming that your water supplier knows how to use it properly.
From your readings, they do not!
That, or it's time for a new meter.

Chloramine can be removed from your water if you wish.
Just buy some ascorbic acid, (vitamin C.), and use it as your PH down.
It breaks Chloramine down without harming tropical fish.

(Or, you could go to a pet store and pay 30-40X as much for the same thing with a different name.
That's what I used to do until I read the bloody label. :))

At the least, I'd buy enough bottled water to confirm my diagnosis before proceeding to costlier remedies, yah?

It, only takes a minute to pop one out of the pot and look at the rootball.
Suggest that you do that, and if you see areas with a white, waxy looking substance, get back to me,.
That might be the actual culprit, root aphids!

Aloha,
Good luck
Weeze

"At the least, I'd buy enough bottled water to confirm my diagnosis before proceeding to costlier remedies, yah?"

"i also have three pots of soil im checking the run off. one with plain tap but ph'd water, one with filtered(crap brita but it lowered the ph by one point) ph'd water and one with distilled ph'd water. if im right the one with tap water should see the ph increase over time. we'll see tho."

Well, dang!
You're way ahead of me on this.

"Nevermind." -E. Latella :D

im thinking im way behind just about everyone on this. i am gonna check for root gnats but i think its too cold to worry about those pests just yet. it rains but just very acidic. oh and the meter is new. i read the report on the change to chloramine and pushing the ph up to 9.2. they claim it will keep microbacteria under control for a longer period of time. well see what the ph's look like in a week or so on the pots i have, ill be mighty surprised if the one doesnt end up very high.

I agree with weezard - Get a few gallons of bottled water just to check and make sure thats the issue. I seems pretty obvious that it couldn't be much else, but better safe than sorry. After you determine that its the water FOR SURE and you install your new filter, even if your PH is right, use both sources of water on isolated test plants - If your results are close to equal, there ya go.

The reason I asked about the source of the seeds (and it was a valid question) was because there are some strains that are VERY finicky about water/nutes while others are not. Another question I have for you is if you have tried (after your PH down of course) adding 1/16th of a feeding of nitrogen. If your balancing your PH properly and still think it's chloramine, use a Vitamin C tablet (dissolve it first) and put into your water.

If you think the problem is Chloramine I do believe the filters are a bit more than $35 because you need an activated charcol filter with a vitamin C additive (that's how you kill the chloramine) HA, I just read weezards entire post, and yes ascorbic acid is what you need.

If you insist on continuing to use your tap, the bottle of ascorbic acid will go alot further than your faucet filter.

On to the next subject, sourcing water. Using your current gutter system you can obtain up to 300 gallons of water per year (depending on the size of your home) by simplying routing your gutters through a filter and into a reservoir.

This WILL solve your chloramine issue, but takes a few hours to setup. I personally don't use this setup, but have seen it implemented before for plant water.

At any rate, I wish you the best of luck

sorry low-rdr didnt mean to imply the genetics question was invalid, it is until you add in the fact the my buddy can get the exact same seeds under essentially the same conditions excluding that he has well water and i have city. but just for the sake of this conversation lets eliminate the plants altogether. lets just go with the water for a sec. right now i have a couple jugs of water one filtered thru the brita and no ph adjustment metered in at 9.2 per municipal regs before filtering and 8.0 after and one with non filtered but ph adjusted to 6.5 down from 9.2. i checked them both yesterday afternoon. i checked them again last nite and the non filtered was still at 8 and the non filtered was jumping back and forth between 6.6 and 6.7. at this point ill chalk that up to the meter or temp change, coincidence etc. so im checking them both now again and they are at filtered 8.0 non filtered is 6.8. im still willing to call that an anomaly since it hasnt been 24 hours after starting to test the jugs. but if the trend of the non filtered waters ph to rise continues would you agree that something is causing the ph to re-adjust? and if the filtered water continues to flatline or rise far slower it would be reasonable then to surmise that whatever that something is has been removed or reduced yeah? i am sure there other chemicals that affect ph to some degree added in also but chloramine im pretty sure is the main one. the reason i can get the filters cheap is because i have a friend that works a graingers, one of the perks of being contractor :) but i have to ask why would i filter the rainwater versus the house water ;) "On to the next subject, sourcing water. Using your current gutter system you can obtain up to 300 gallons of water per year (depending on the size of your home) by simplying routing your gutters through a filter and into a reservoir." hehe i got a pic to show you guys why i dont use our rainwater. one we dont a ton of rain this time of year its mostly snow. the one good thing about snow is when it rains right afterwards you get a reeeeal good picture of whats in your air. if it looks like this youre gonna need a bigger filter Attachment 290019Attachment 290020
and no there wasnt a fire, no volcanoes thats just what gets dredged outta the air whenever it rains right after snow around here. its scary sorta. anyway i think the more definitve answer will come when i start checking the pots of soil if the non filterd ph rises over time then something is building up in the soil and i can only see that being chloramine. but i wont know that for a few weeks.

oh and i am using store bought water for now not happy about it but there ya have it. oh yeah i screwed this up "i checked them again last nite and the non filtered was still at 8 and the non filtered was jumping back and forth between 6.6 and 6.7." the filtered one was at 8.0 still.

ok i guess ill look into the vitamin c thing that sounds pretty good.

Weezard, i took a look at one of the plants roots, they looked ok. they are only going on 2 weeks above ground tomorrow so the roots were not too extensive but they looked ok. i didnt see anything funky anyway. nice and white like the inside of a radish kinda.

Ive talked to many people about this same thing also. My tapwater was coming out about 8.3ish. It took a lot of ph down to get it around 6.5ish. I was having a lot of ph issues while doing this. I then got on ebay and ordered a small RO system for around 160. To make a long story short, i tested the same water out of the RO system and the ph read around 7. Rusty told me that the RO doesnt affect ph (i have yet to look this up because I trust the source). So either something in my tap water was either affecting my 2 ph pens(incorrect readings) or the ph down i was using. Either way, whatever the RO was filtering out has made all the difference in my grows. Now i just prefill my gallon jugs and when its time to water i just add a little molasses and water. Happy little plants now. Just something you might wanna check out.

if one of your stages is a carbon filter that can take whatever is changing the ph like chloramine or chlorine with ro. i just have a problem with the waste and the fact it takes hours to make a gallon. that and i just cant see not using my tap water if i can get around the ph issue. from what weezard and low-rdr were telling me about vitamin c that sounds like a real good option too. i just dont want whatever is causing my ph to change building up in the soil.

Chloramine breaks down to halo methanes over time so, no buildup.
And, it is usually measured in parts per billion so It would take years if it did. :)

However, from your description, it sounds like your water is chock full of alkaline salts.
So, your PH down is producing salts that will accumulate.

Chasing alkaline water with PH down is like playing peek-a-boo with a 2 year old, it never ends.

And not for nothin', PH readings on distilled water are meaningless because most PH meters actually read conductance.
Distilled water is an insulator, no conductance to read.

Aloha,
Weeze

well ill admit i dont know a lot about my meter as far as the probe goes id hazard to guess it may work that way. as for the salt wouldnt i get a high reading for e/c? my tap water reads 9.2 ph , .17-.22 e/c , and 145-167 ppm. i thought the e/c would read higher just because we do get so much snow and use salt to control ice. or is that high? seems low or normalish to me. no readings or inaccurate reading on distilled kinda sucks but i can use my drops to at least guesstimate the run off i suppose.
and yeah it is like chasing 2 year olds. i did my time , im too worn down to chase much of anything these days :)

ok chloramine may not be the devil but it is an archdemon when it comes to ph and soil anyway.
i had 4 jugs of water one straight tap, one filtered and ph adjusted to 6.5, one non filtered but adjusted to 6.5, and one non filtered and adjusted to 10.
i had 4 containers of ffof no plants and 4 ffof with seedlings.
everyday i checked the ph on the water and everytime i watered the plants i checked the runoffs including the pots without plants.
jug of straight tap, ph gradually lowered but never below 8. filtered and ph'd to 6.5 jug climbed the upper 8's. non filtered 6.5 climbed back up but not as fast and not as high. non filtered 10 ph stayed about the same.
run offs for straight tap were around 5.6-5.8 in both pots with a plant and without. the filtered 6.5 runoffs were in the 7' at first and jumped up to mid/upper 8's over time in both. the non filtered 6.5 runoffs were both in the low 4's.
the non filtered 10 runoffs were both 6.5-6.8. the plant in the ph 10 and oddly enough the straight tap(soil turned toxic ec was at 6 or so) plant survived. the plant in the toxic soil is severely stunted and is sorta like bonzai the other is super healthy by comparison. the best i can come up with is when you filter the water it breaks some of the chloramine bonds and leaves the ammonia and chlorine both in the 11's for ph behind. why it behaves the way it does in the soil i can only attribute to some reaction between the chemical content in the soil and the chloramine or the byproduct from filtering. either way its a pain in the sack. i would never have guessed i need to raise the ph when it comes in at 9.3 to begin with. the meter is a good one, i calibrated it over and over thinking i was insane but it is right on the money. the other factor is the seed is from northern mexico, thats the only thing i know for sure. that and the soil in northern mexico can be very alkaline. it sounds crazy i know but the proof is in the plants. the 2 here are the high ph and toxic tap water. on my current grow(since i figured it out) i have been using non filtered ph adjusted to 10 water with a little calmag and ff big bloom(more recently) 2 out of them have recovered pretty much all the way and 2 seems to be taking longer but are getting there. all this adds up to in my case is a good argument for some sort of hydro. the pic of the little plant came out crappy but then it is a crappy little plant :)

bimp