[Anonymiss]

I had a lot of the same concerns being mostly organic with my grows in the past, and guess what I found out? UK Water Co's (and lots of others) don't use chlorine any more, but chloramine. This isn't (*allegedly*) as harmful as chlorine and last longer in the water without evaporating away.
 
Now you'd think that may be a bad thing as its still in the water, but I also found out that it is neutralized by humic acid. A good organic medium should have plenty of humics in there anyway, and even more importantly it only takes a few g of humic acid to neutralise thousands of gallons of chloraminated water. The Humics in the soil (and usually in any follow up organic feeds) can cope fine with the amount of chloramine in the water so it turns out that this is a bit of a red-herring re:killing off the microbes in the soil as it gets neutralized too quick to make much difference. There will be a slight loss of the 'herd' as they say but its not fukushima stylee

If that's the case then, maybe, there's also a wider environmental benefit to be had from using chlormaines instead of chlorine?

[Vador]

p.s. Check your PH after you've bubbled as passing co2 through the water impacts the PH, sometimes quite drastically! And if you have to start adding non organic ph-up/down then the chemicals in that will play havoc with the organic balance we're trying to maintain. (ditto chemical nutes)

I've just checked ph now, I'm glad you pointed that out.
My normal tap water is slightly alkaline at 7.5
After 12 hours or so of bubbling the ph is now 8.5 so risen by ten
I've just added some coffee grounds into one of the bottles in the hope it might drop the ph enough for the next watering, if not I'm sure the plants are still going to enjoy the full flavour of columbian roast coffee.
Even if bubbling doesn't get rid of chlorine or chloramine it's still going to add dissolved oxygen to the water which will hopefully get trapped in the particles of soil and benefit the plants
That's my theory anyway, I'm going to keep experimenting with this and see what happens

I'll do another ph test tomorrow on the coffee water and report back with the results

[Vador]

If that's the case then, maybe, there's also a wider environmental benefit to be had from using chlormaines instead of chlorine?

That's a bit of a grey area at the moment, I was reading earlier all about this and it turns out chlorine might be better
Chloramine won't remove lead deposits and kill some strains of pathogens where as chlorine will, and the fact that chloramine is a lot harder to remove from the water.
Dialysis machines need to have the chloramine removed from the water beforehand.
Also there haven't been as many studies into the effects of chloramine on the human body so there is no evidence to say it's safer than chlorine

[Anonymiss]

That's a bit of a grey area at the moment, I was reading earlier all about this and it turns out chlorine might be better
Chloramine won't remove lead deposits and kill some strains of pathogens where as chlorine will, and the fact that chloramine is a lot harder to remove from the water.
Dialysis machines need to have the chloramine removed from the water beforehand.
Also there haven't been as many studies into the effects of chloramine on the human body so there is no evidence to say it's safer than chlorine

I was thinking more along the lines of treated water escaping from the system into the environment, and of people dumping thousands of litres of water onto their farms and gardens in the summer.

If it's true that chloramine is less harmful and does break down more quickly in soil than chlorine does then, it may be better for (or at least less harmful to) the enviroment than water that has been treated with chlorine.

[Vador]

I was thinking more along the lines of treated water escaping from the system into the environment, and of people dumping thousands of litres of water onto their farms and gardens in the summer.

If it's true that chloramine is less harmful and does break down more quickly in soil than chlorine does then, it may be better for (or at least less harmful to) the enviroment than water that has been treated with chlorine.

Oh yes I see where you are coming from, better environmentally so better in the long run, it's a shame filtration to remove chlorine and chloramine is so expensive.

Well the coffee grounds have dropped the ph down to 7.5 so that's the same as my tap water

I'm going to do the same with tea and see what happens with that, all being well I'll end up mixing the tea and coffee together, I'm hoping this will be my main source of nitrogen and a few other elements.
I want to try a bottle with bone meal mixed in and use that in flowering for a source of p, I've read bone meal is excellent food for the micro beasts
The plan is to test things individually to start with and find the ph of each brew, got a test set on the way that should let me determine npk levels in each.
Then I will start mixing things together in some mad scientist type experiment
This has gone from a dechlorinator to a brewing machine
If anyone knows of any organic matter that's a decent ph and got n, p or k that would be good for a test please let me know

[ZenArcher]

This is a part of Scottish waters public information on water treatment. As you can see clearly they are still using chlorine. but appear to be switching to chloramine.   Maybe Vador you can look at your local water authorities public info on treatment to discover if they use chlorine or chloramine, also may be more info there too.

                                                                                                 

Water Treatment

6. disinfection Disinfection is vital to ensure that water-borne diseases are eliminated, and that the drinking water that we supply to you meets the Water Supply (Water Quality) (Scotland) Regulations 2001. Chlorine is predominantly used for disinfection either in gas or liquid form. However, chloramination (the addition of small quantities of ammonia mixed with chlorine) is also now being used in some areas of Scotland as it lasts longer in the supply system with less obvious taste and odour. Other less frequently used processes include the use of UV (ultra violet) light and Ozone for disinfection. For more information please see Scottish Water factsheet 5 chlorine explained, and Scottish Water factsheet 6 chloramination explained

[Lab Rat]

if you use RO machines then you'll have to add back in any goodies/minerals that are taken out, but, RO does not remove chloramine.

 

http://www.reefkeepi...11/rhf/feature/
 

[Vador]

So then @GoodBudgie, I went to the growshop today to try get some humic acid, all they had was advanced nutrients b-52
It contains humic and fulvic acid I think it was.
I've heard in the past people say it's good but is it ok for organic, seems ok to me and the bloke in the shop says its good, just thought I'd run it passed you first.

[Budgie]

Not sure about the AN:B-52 @Vador, but AN tend to be mostly chem based if memory serves.

 

What you need to remember is that Humic/Fulvic acids are natully produced by the breakdown of organic matter, its basically what makes soil brown/black in colour. So a good organic soil has loads in already A good organic addition which has it in is charcoal (off ebay or from petshops), soil from ancient forests is packed with the stuff, if you brew up a compost tea then the breakdown of the greenery in the mix will produce humics too.  A good organic fert like PLant Magic's Old Timer range will naturally have it in there.

 

I suppose the thing I should throw back to you is what 'type' of organic method are you going with? Soil or hydro/coco? If soil, then if you can mix everything up in a big tub a few weeks before hand, inc any Mycho, organic ferts, perlite, charcoal etc,. then you will have a nicely activated medium when the time comes to use it and may not need to add any extra specific 'Humic' products at all. But if in a hydro then it would be a different matter.

[Vador]

Oh i see that makes sense.
I'm using verve compost with mixed in
Worm castings/ coffee grounds
Sharp sand
Sphagnum moss
Blood and bone meal
Epsom salt
Perlite
Garden lime and a couple of other things I can't remember off the top of my head,
Got some mycorrhizal fungi and a tub of great white
Just a bit of a mix and match from bits and pieces I've read online really, seems to be working well enough for me at the moment, although I've only just started using the fungi so can't comment on that yet.
I've read 'teaming with microbes' and I'm planning out the veg patch in the garden for this year, my ultimate goal is be fully bio organic indoors and out,
Haven't got any good enough compost to make teas at the moment so having to make do