I Have Been Making The Same Mistake For 6 Months

[andywg]

If all that is added to your water is straight chlorine, no chloramine, then you can do what used to be the normal thing to do. Let the water sit out in a bucket for 24 hours and then add it to the tank. The chlorine will be dissipated in the 24 hours and the water will be fine. I did it that way for many years until chloramine became more common. Now I'm afraid of it because even if I knew my water supplier was using straight chlorine today, I would not know when they changed over and would lose too many fish. To me the dechlorinator is cheap insurance against that outcome.

If you look through some of my posts I quote research found by Bignose which shows that the bacteria we keep in our tank filters appear able to actually feed off of the -amine part of the chloramine leaving chlora- to off gas quite nicely. It is causing issues in water treatment plants because they need to add more chloramine to deal with the bacteria, but then more feed off of it. Then, to make matters worse, the lack of chloramine in the water allows nasty bacteria such as E. coli to grow.

Finally, think about where your bacteria comes from, the most likely source is from the tap water, meaning you already have somewhat resistive bacteria in the tank, then consider that out bacteria colonies are far larger than the levels that water treatment plants are trying to do away with. As a result there appears to be some support (both scientific and anecdotal as from Miss Wiggle above) for a lack of dechlorinator.

However, it is extremely cheap, and many will bind heavy metals, so it is far from entirely pointless using it, but no derision should follow if you choose not to.

 

[Esfa]

Wow, didn't know that, Andy.

so the bacteria "eats" the -amine and then the chlorine gasses off?

 

[shelaghfishface]

If all that is added to your water is straight chlorine, no chloramine, then you can do what used to be the normal thing to do. Let the water sit out in a bucket for 24 hours and then add it to the tank. The chlorine will be dissipated in the 24 hours and the water will be fine. I did it that way for many years until chloramine became more common. Now I'm afraid of it because even if I knew my water supplier was using straight chlorine today, I would not know when they changed over and would lose too many fish. To me the dechlorinator is cheap insurance against that outcome.

If you look through some of my posts I quote research found by Bignose which shows that the bacteria we keep in our tank filters appear able to actually feed off of the -amine part of the chloramine leaving chlora- to off gas quite nicely. It is causing issues in water treatment plants because they need to add more chloramine to deal with the bacteria, but then more feed off of it. Then, to make matters worse, the lack of chloramine in the water allows nasty bacteria such as E. coli to grow.

Finally, think about where your bacteria comes from, the most likely source is from the tap water, meaning you already have somewhat resistive bacteria in the tank, then consider that out bacteria colonies are far larger than the levels that water treatment plants are trying to do away with. As a result there appears to be some support (both scientific and anecdotal as from Miss Wiggle above) for a lack of dechlorinator.

However, it is extremely cheap, and many will bind heavy metals, so it is far from entirely pointless using it, but no derision should follow if you choose not to.

oh well there we have it

 

[AndyOleszczuk]

hmmm seems to be, but i felt better thinking i was using it, and now i feel a hell of a lot better KNOWING i am indeed using it,albeit a bit late on

I know what you mean Shelagh. I was using tetra aquasafe for 2 years and that is blue so you can see when you are adding it to your new water.

I now use Seachem Prime and it is concentrated and also colourless so I get really paranoid now as I'm not sure whether I have added enough !!!

I wonder whether I could get away with putting some food colouring in it so I can tell when I have added the seachem ?

Answers on a postcard please

 

[andywg]

Wow, didn't know that, Andy.

so the bacteria "eats" the -amine and then the chlorine gasses off?

That appears to be the case. Bignose's original post is here