City water
 

I've been watering my starting beds with tap water and I think it's causing a problem. I've tested using spring and distilled water with positive results(read growth spurt) so I think the city water was stunting my plants. My question is... will the chlorine in the city water disipate if I leave it in a pail or plactic container for a few days?

Yup. You could also use a filter. However, we've not had any problems, and you can smell the chlorine in San Antonio as soon as you hit city limits.

laurel-tx

Can you cap the plastic container or do you need to leave the lid off? I have plastic milk cartons.

My understanding is that the chlorine evaporates, so you leave the cap off.
We did that when we had fish and cleaned the fish bowl.

Tyff

Chlorine will dissipate from water in an open container within a day. This is probably better than straight from the tap. However, when I worked at a nursery, we always used water straight from the hose and never had any problems from it...

The chlorine will dissipate in a day if you leave the cap off. But my water is chlorinated and I've never had any problems that I thought were caused by the chlorine. I'm sure something else must be affecting your plants.

Are you sure your water is being treated with chlorine and not chloramine? Chloramine will not dissipate the way chlorine will. I don't know if chloramine would stunt your plants, though. Hopefully it wouldn't be harmful to plant life, since the city certainly must know that people will be watering their lawns and gardens with this water. :roll:

I let all tap water sit for at least 24 hours before watering ANY of my seedlings, bonsai trees, or houseplants. It more of a precaution than anything.

~ Tom

Most of the chlorine in tap water dissipates as the gas it is in between the tap and the container you are filling (which is why you smell it). Unless your city is way over the EPA regs, you shouldn't have a problem. If you are still worried, extend the distance from the tap to the container to allow greater aeration.

[quote=barkeater;52221]Most of the chlorine in tap water dissipates ....[/quote]

MOST, but not all by any means. I don't know if it's bad for your tomatoes, but it TASTES disgusting... and when you bathe in it, one smells as if they've been swimming in a community pool. TOTALLY GROSS! IMO... :) However, the alternative would be bleak, I'm sure... lots of gross diseases lurking in those water... :?

When I was a kid we had town water that came from the Mohawk River and was treated heavily, and every place I lived after I left home, as in Ithaca, Rochester, Denver, back to the Albany area had water where I could smell the chlorine.But in the Albany area I also knew many commercial farmers and all of them used municipal water to water their crops, save two, one who luckily had an artesian well and the other had a pond that resulted from springs and he'd pump water from there to the crops and the greenhouses, and that was my farmer friend Charlie where for so many years I raised my own tomato plants.

And I never saw any problems at any stage of raising seedlings or watering mature plants in the field from those who used municipal water. And I guess they didn't either b'c they all continued that practice.

And so it came to pass that when I retired in 1999 and moved to my new home I found I had a 65 ft driven well in rock and oh how lovely the water is. Cold and clear and free of chlorine and all other noxious things. Yes, it's been tested, in the womb to tomb high priced test. Since I live in an agricultural area and so much they use can get into the watershed it's important to do such high priced kinds of tests. But I'm up off the valley floor and my water comes from Egg Mt springs and Manchester, VT is on the other side of Egg MT.

Fact is, my brother and family lived not too far from where I am and had for about 35 years before they moved to NC two years ago, and during those years whenever I was home from here or there we'd drive up to my brother's place and my mother would insist that we bring jugs and take home water from their well.

I can't conceive that the amount of Chlorine in municipally treated water would be at a level that would damage in any way normal crops. Perhaps some fussy inside stuff, but not your typical outside grown veggies, fruits and flowers.

And any of you who are in my area of Eastern NY on the Vt border between Granville and Cambridge, do stop by and enjoy my lovely cold, chemical free water.:)

Sounds really cool Carolyn! REAL fresh water ~

In the mountains of NW, NJ my parents have their own well ...
Sometimes it was rough to drink (due to heavy rains), and other times it was a dream; real fresh tasting spring water...

At the house my fiance and I have now (bayshore/central region of NJ), as soon as we moved in a number of years ago, and tasting their municpal water, we vowed to ONLY drink bottled water and only cook with tap...

Its not that its THAT BAD ... just tastes? off - :?

I've read when you water your house plants with tap,
you will get a "salt ring" around your pots because its content is so high ... I def. still have salt rings on my pots, even though I let all tap water "sit" ...

~ Tom

BR, A couple sites that carry water filters. Ami
[url]http://www.pwgazette.com/gardenhosefilters.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.breworganic.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=353[/url]

I don't know if the chlorine hurts seedlings.
I use tap water from the hot spigot.
Let it cool. I was told years ago the hot water
has less chlorine?

I use regular tap water for mature plants.

I have tried two different things, (1) I fill a 50 gal barrel with water and let it set for a couple days. I fill it after I have drawn off what I need to water for the week or day. (2) put a couple scoops of "Tang" in the water especially if used for making Manure Teal. I do not know if my water dept uses clorine or a clorimide in water treatment. I do know that some times I have to call the water department to let them know that they are not putting enough in during the high heat of summer. Water smells and tastes like a fish pond.

Tom, the "ring" is from dissolved minerals coming back out of the water. As water evaporates, the salts become more concentrated until they finally start to precipitate out. Chlorine is a gas. It is dissolved in water, but it will evaporate as well--faster than the water will--thus the concentration of chlorine will go down in water that sits.

Even rain has lots of stuff dissolved in it. Think about acid rain (elemental sulfur going through several stages of oxidation and ending up as sulfuric acid). Think about rain in the city where there is heavy automobile traffic and the resulting exhaust.

I water my seedlings when they're in the basement-under-lights stage with water I've saved from the dehumidifier. But that's mostly because we don't have a water faucet in the basement and I'm too lazy to traipse up and down the stairs with jugs of water from the kitchen sink tap.:lol:

As Carolyn said, some of us in this area have excellent well water. I am right outside of Cobleskill. But I am at the top of the mountain. So we do not get runoff.

We have a filter only because very small stones can make their way into the tap. The water does have some salt in it. Occasionally there is residue. During the summer months, I will use rain water from the barrel.

Our "city" water supply comes from wells drilled into the Ogalolla Aquifer and our "city" does not treat the water unless a problem is found in the weekly testing.

After having spent about 15 years working in and around water treatment facilities and doing twice daily water tests, my recollection is that clorine does indeed lose most of its effectiveness out of a closed system after about 30 seconds. Stir the water container a little and most all the clorine is gone into the air.

I have always used processed water on my tomatoes and have never noticed anything unusual....unless its the third arm growing out of my back.