Carbon blocks and chlorine testing

[Muffin87]

Residual chlorine (no chloramines, only chlorine and chlorine dioxide) in the water mains where I live in Italy is between 0,03 and 0,05 ppm.
Do I need a very good 1 mcr carbon block, or can I just get a cheap 10 or 5 mcr carbon block and replace it once a year?

Is it recommended to test for chlorine after the carbon blocks, or do you simply change them out every 6 or 12 months using some kind of guesswork?

If you have a small 50G, wouldn’t sediment filters and carbon blocks last much longer than a year, since some of them have a life span of 4000 Gallons?

 

[threebuoys]

You should really try to remove the chlorine from the water before it ever enters the tank so you don't have to worry about it. Carbon is slow to remove chlorine unless you are using a RO/DI setup to filter your water source. Also, liquid water conditioners that remove chlorine work instantly and are very cheap. I'm assuming they are available in Italy.

 

[Muffin87]

Carbon is slow to remove chlorine unless you are using a RO/DI setup to filter your water source

That's the carbon blocks I'm talking about.