Chlorine help!

[KatB94]

Hi everyone!

I have a new tank which has 12 Neons 5 Salt and Pepper Corys and a male Betta in. The tank is rougly 18gallons (though I live in the UK so its 70 litres).

I've been using the JBL proscan test strips and app. I've always had really reliable results and my local aquarium shop reccomended it.

The last couple of weeks I've had varying high readings of chlorine, anywhere from 1 to 1.7. I do however use water conditioner which I have replaced as a precaution and after a water change the levels went down for about one day.

The fish haven't been exhibiting signs of not getting oxygen, but I've kept an air stone on and left the lights on so the plants continue to produce oxygen.

Any help much welcomed! I can't find anything anywhere about where the chlorine could be coming from!

Thanks!

 

[Essjay]

I read on another forum about someone having this problem. It turned out that the strips were well out of date, and new strips showed a zero reading. What is the use-by on the pack of strips you have?


How long have you been leaving the lights on for? It reads as though you are leaving them on all the time. If this is what you are doing, you need to turn them off for several hours a day at the same time each day or the fish will become stressed. There are a few posts by Byron giving the reasons.

 

[NickAu]

Hi
I have no input on your water issues.

However.
Contrary to what you may have heard Neon Tetras and Bettas do not make good tank mates. Tetras cant resist nipping the Bettas fins, Male Bettas are best kept on their own.

 

[Byron]

I too would question the test strips/results. I am not aware of any reaction that could occur within an aquarium to result in chlorine appearing, aside from the water introduced at water changes or certain plant additives (chlorine is a plant micro-nutrient). There is not sufficient chlorine in fertilizers to show this, and any reliable water conditioner will dechlorinate instantly.

Essjay's point about the tank lighting is important. If the light is left on the fish have no dark period in which to rest, and you will have very seriously stressed fish. Ich outbreaks are common in such cases, not to mention the permanent weakening this does to the fish's physiology. And in any event, the plants cannot be producing oxygen 24/7; they only photosynthesize if the light intensity is sufficient and all required nutrients are present. CO2 is bound to be insufficient after several hours at best, so that alone would slow photosynthesis and likely stop it. And outside of photosynthesis, plants like fish respirate normally, by taking up oxygen and giving off CO2.

I also agree with Nick that Betta should never be combined with neon tetras; I witnessed a Betta eat a neon several years ago. And in reverse, fish like neons can stress out a Betta.

Byron.

 

[StevenF]

You should check your tap water for chlorine before adding the conditioner. There may be more chlorine in your tap water than normal.

If it is not from your tap your water chemistry and plants could cause it to show up. Normally chlorine is locked up as potassium chloride or sodium chloride. These two salts will not show up in a total chlorine test. However if you have a lot of potassium chloride in your tank and good plant growth the potassium would be removed and the excess chlorine would remain in the water. It then would show up in a total chlorine test. However the chlorine does quickly react with other minerals in the water and and then again would not show up in the total chlorine test. You could put a sea shells in your water. It will react with any chlorine forming calcium chloride which is safe and is a frequenly used in plant fertilizer. You could also dim your aquarium lights to slow plant growth. Calcium chloride is also used in some GH additives such as Sea chem replenish. I have used calcium chloride before in my tank without issues.

Could you please post your test result numbers and list all additives you put in the water (include the brand name). That might help use figure it out.

 

[KatB94]

Hiya

Thanks for the advice that's really helpful! I've been keeping the lights off for a couple or few hours at a time but since I read the info about the strips I've been switching off all night as normal.

Thanks for the input on the tankmates but it's working just fine. I put a lot of effort into the personalities of the fish and they've been together just fine.

Thanks again!

 

[KatB94]

P.S. I did check and the test strips are indeed out of date