5 gallon water bottles + bleach = Smoke???

[MotorSeven]

KT, I dunno...if so, you would think two rinsing's would have stopped it, but it didn't.


I think I will send a sample of the water out to a real Lab and have it tested......this mystery is killing me.

 

[mmurphy]

You could get ammonia from organics breaking down, leach fields, spills from unknown sources, upstream water shed area could surprise you what is there.

Ammonia is part of the nitrogen cycle, nitrites, nitrates. It takes different bacterias for each part of the cycle.

Just guessing on what you had there of course, too many variables involved. After having a rain that big, I also assume you have not been having that much before this, could of cleaned up some old vegetation and what else is there.

We use a little bottle with about 5 to 10% ammonia which we use the vapors and not the liquid to look for chlorine gas leaks. It looks like white smoke when chlorine gas gets hit by the ammonia vapor. Does not take much.

You may have heard about people getting sick from a swimming pool like at a motel, where it is enclosed. Some times people who are not familiar with the reactions maybe using a cleaner with a ammonia base. That will make the strong chlorinated water in the pool to gas off.

 

[MotorSeven]

You could get ammonia from organics breaking down, leach fields, spills from unknown sources, upstream water shed area could surprise you what is there.

Ammonia is part of the nitrogen cycle, nitrites, nitrates. It takes different bacterias for each part of the cycle.

Just guessing on what you had there of course, too many variables involved. After having a rain that big, I also assume you have not been having that much before this, could of cleaned up some old vegetation and what else is there.

We use a little bottle with about 5 to 10% ammonia which we use the vapors and not the liquid to look for chlorine gas leaks. It looks like white smoke when chlorine gas gets hit by the ammonia vapor. Does not take much.

You may have heard about people getting sick from a swimming pool like at a motel, where it is enclosed. Some times people who are not familiar with the reactions maybe using a cleaner with a ammonia base. That will make the strong chlorinated water in the pool to gas off.

Thanks, Murph, I think you are on to it. The spring is in a holler, steep banks on 3 sides, heavily wooded with a thick carpet of leaves. It faces North, so it gets very little sun in the winter which means lots of moss & lichens growing on the rocks. During heavy rains, I am sure surface water is getting into the spring, which is piped into a 55 gal pickle barrel. The other end of the pipe is jammed 2' under a rock ledge & has screen on the end. Surface water here can disappear then reappear several times through a honeycomb of limestone.

 

[EarPlug]

I might be interesting to take a sample of your water, your bottle and even your bleach to the local High School Chemistry teacher. You might get an answer and the kids will get a real world science lesson.

Jack

 

[Pilot]

You're looking at huge amounts of water with a little ammonia. I suspect that all that water would dilute any ammonia to where there would be essentially no reaction.

 

[grsthegreat]

Very funny, but virtually everyone in North America is drinking water that has been through a few septic tanks........think about it:thumbsup:

I'm immune anyway...raised in New Orleans where the city got it's water from the sparkling clear Mississippi River:laughing: The joke back then was by the time it got to us it had been through 26 kidneys:licking:

NOT ME... mine comes from a aquifier 700ft below the surface......HA

Only fish poop in my water