Can I Re-Fill My Tank Like This?

[oneblondebrow]

Hi all, This is just a follow up from a previous thread of mine, I have got myself a Long hose and a connector for my mixer tap, What i plan on doing is during a water change i will refill the tank with the correct temp directly from the mixer tap, Then i will add the relevent amount of Tetra Aquasafe to the aquarium and stir it in.

Does this sound ok? Should i use the amount of Aquasafe required just for the amount of the change or for the whole tank? Would it be halmfull adding this to the tapwater after adding it to the tank?

 

[the420buzz]

That sounds like what I do, and it's worked for me thus far.

As for the amount you put in, just put enough to cover the amount of water your replacing. So, if you're doing a w/c on a 50 gallon, and drain it halfway, you'd only add enough water conditioner to condition a 25 gallon. Perhaps add an extra teaspoon for good measure, as I don't think it'd harm anything (if I'm wrong on this, please let me know). If you want, you could add half before you fill it back up, and half after, but I usually just put it in close to the end. I pour it into the stream of my python so it mixes itself as it enters. I`ve read that the conditioner works very quickly, so I don`t think there is any worry about putting it in afterwards.

Hope this helps.

 

[fishyfeet]

I do this with a hose to the outside tap, i was also lead to beleive that you have to treat the whole tank, as the whole tank now would have chlorine add to it, if you use buckets then you can just treat for the amount of water replacing as there is no chlorine when adding it to the tank. di

 

[fishyfeet]

Here what it says on seachem prime site

Use 1 capful (5 mL) for each 200 L (50 gallons*) of new water. This removes approximately 1 mg/L ammonia, 4 mg/L chloramine, or 5 mg/L chlorine. For smaller doses, please note each cap thread is approx. 1 mL. May be added to aquarium directly, but better if added to new water first. If adding directly to aquarium, base dose on aquarium volume. Sulfur odor is normal. For exceptionally high chloramine concentrations, a double dose may be used safely. To detoxify nitrite in an emergency, up to 5 times normal dose may be used. If temperature is > 30 °C (86 °F) and chlorine or ammonia levels are low, use a half dose

 

[the420buzz]

I was unaware of that, but at the same time I don't use Prime. I use 'Big Al's Multi Purpose Aquarium Water Conditioner', and it doesn't say that on it. To each their own though.

 

[waterdrop]

I have the opposite reaction. The BigAl's stuff will not be as good as the Seachem Prime and so there will actually be a little -more- importance to being sure to dose for the full aquarium volume. There have been a couple of productive discussions of the full vs. partial dosing issue. I haven't got it down to a good "sound byte" yet but basically it has to do with the fact that when dosing the running aquarium, the active ingredients of the conditioner will have to deal with many more types of molecules present than if the conditioner were put into plain tap water. There are more detailed looks at that but the bottom line is just that more conditioner is needed for direct dosing.

Another thing to think about is that some of our most senior fishkeepers recommend dosing at 1.5x to 2x, especially during the first year or so of a tank. The water authorities often overdose chlorine/chloramine to deal with short-term problems they have in their piping systems. This results in a large overdose possibly suddenly coming in on a given water change. Conditioner is really just an insurance against a risk. The risk is not always there and the amount of insurance is not always correctly predictable. But most aquarists, particularly those with much-loved or monetarily valuable fish collections, view a good conditioner as a very cheap insurance.

My favorite recommendation for an ideal approach is to dose Seachem Prime at 1.5x for the first year and a half of a tanks life and after that to consider, based on ones money situation, whether to just continue with the Prime or whether to look around for a Pond Dechlor product that calculates out to be even more concentrated and less expensive than the Prime. Water changes to mature tanks that are under 15% or so probably do not really need either conditioner or temp matching, but most do it anyway. Water changes to young tanks under 2 years would be better advised to go with the insurance, in my opinion.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[loachman]

I'd add extra dechlorinator if dosing it directly into the tank. You want to eliminate the chlorine as fast as possible in your tank, and you're going to have a much more dilute concentration of it in your tank than if you'd done it directly to a bucket of water (i.e., 1 capful in your tank is much less concentrated than 1 capful in a bucket).

It's also really, really hard to overdose dechlorinator so that is not a concern.

 

[5teady_2012]

you only have to dose for the amount of water you change, prime is the best stuff out there and does absoloutly loads of things.

I dont personally think you need to add more dosage just cos your adding after the water goes in.

 

[Jenste]

i also don't think you should over dose - the dosage will disperse quickly enough to dechlorinate the newly added water

 

[waterdrop]

The advice to dose for the tank volume is important. We've had it straight from the chemists who do the stuff for the manufacturers. The thiosulfate anion involved in the reaction will have many other things to react with when dosed in to a working aquarium (unlike tap water, a working aquarium will have hundreds of compounds present such as dissolved organic carbons (amino acids (from fishfood), sugars, polypeptides, proteins and humic substances) and inorganic elements, metals and their salts.) This has been brought out in a number of discussions in different subforums of TFF.

As a totally separate thing, lots of the experienced aquarists here have indicated no hesitation at overdosing conditioner in order to guard against overdosing by the water authorities, however, more recently we had comments by Hovanec (one of our only truly scientific sources as the person who's been published) that overdosing conditioner at more than 2x overdose slows down N-Bac development if cycling is going on (in non-cycling established aquariums it wouldn't matter.)

WD

 

[loachman]

As a totally separate thing, lots of the experienced aquarists here have indicated no hesitation at overdosing conditioner in order to guard against overdosing by the water authorities, however, more recently we had comments by Hovanec (one of our only truly scientific sources as the person who's been published) that overdosing conditioner at more than 2x overdose slows down N-Bac development if cycling is going on (in non-cycling established aquariums it wouldn't matter.)

WD

Interesting, do you know how much the slow down is? A couple percent, or more significant?

 

[waterdrop]

As a totally separate thing, lots of the experienced aquarists here have indicated no hesitation at overdosing conditioner in order to guard against overdosing by the water authorities, however, more recently we had comments by Hovanec (one of our only truly scientific sources as the person who's been published) that overdosing conditioner at more than 2x overdose slows down N-Bac development if cycling is going on (in non-cycling established aquariums it wouldn't matter.)

WD

Interesting, do you know how much the slow down is? A couple percent, or more significant?

No, my recollection of this (which may be inaccurate) was that this was truly just a comment in some PMs or posts I had with him and it was without further comment about the extent. I expect its not a big deal but then again, sometimes I've taken things lightly and then they've turned out to be a bit more "definate" than my imagination allowed for if you know what I mean. Personally it has not caused me to actually use a pipette on my Prime ... its just too easy to dribble below various thread levels of the bottle cap and tell yourself it must be close, lol. But it does keep me from blithely just tossing in, say, a half cap when a single thread would be much closer to 2x. WD