Is "start Right" Necessary?

[Alexp08]

Just like the title say. Is Start Right or other water conditioners necessary after a water change?

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[Byron]

It depends.  But not all conditioners are the same, and for reasons I will come to, I would not myself use Start Right, assuming this is the Jungle product of that name.
 
If your source water (tap water) is from a municipal water supply, in North America I believe all of them use chlorine and/or chloramine to kill most bacteria that are dangerous for humans.  Some may use only chlorine, others both.  This has to be dealt with as they will immediately burn fish gills.  If you are on private water, like a well, you may not have chlorine/chloramine to worry about (some do add this themselves) though there could be other issues, but I'll leave all that on the assumption you are on municipal water.
 
Most conditioners will detoxify chlroine and chloramine, though a few only deal with chlorine.  So the first thing is to ascertain what is in your source water and choose the best conditioner.  And at this point, we come to the other "things" some of these do.
 
First is heavy metals; again not all detoxify these, but most do.  It is often not necessary, but it is a safeguard in case higher levels of something like copper (from your plumbing) should arise, so it won't hurt.
 
There are a couple of very good quality conditioners that deal with the afore-mentioned only, that are often adequate; thinking of API Tap Water Conditioner, Kordon's NovAqua, and some others.  But beyond this, we get into problems.  Additives can be useless at best, or actually harmful to fish at worst.  Which brings me to the Jungle Start Right, which contains Aloe Vera.  This has now been proven in scientific tests to harm fish, so I would not use any conditioner containing aloe vera (there are a couple others, can't remember which off hand).  Nutrafin's Aqua Plus contains "pure herbal extract" but doesn't say what exactly, so I would avoid this (may well be aloe vera); it also has valerian in it, and I am certainly at a loss to explain how this could be beneficial.
 
Some conditioners also detoxify ammonia, and a couple nitrite, and one nitrate.  This is only useful if you have these in the source water.  The healthy aquarium bio-system can easily handle those occurring from fish.
 
Byron.

 

[Alexp08]

It depends.  But not all conditioners are the same, and for reasons I will come to, I would not myself use Start Right, assuming this is the Jungle product of that name.
 
If your source water (tap water) is from a municipal water supply, in North America I believe all of them use chlorine and/or chloramine to kill most bacteria that are dangerous for humans.  Some may use only chlorine, others both.  This has to be dealt with as they will immediately burn fish gills.  If you are on private water, like a well, you may not have chlorine/chloramine to worry about (some do add this themselves) though there could be other issues, but I'll leave all that on the assumption you are on municipal water.
 
Most conditioners will detoxify chlroine and chloramine, though a few only deal with chlorine.  So the first thing is to ascertain what is in your source water and choose the best conditioner.  And at this point, we come to the other "things" some of these do.
 
First is heavy metals; again not all detoxify these, but most do.  It is often not necessary, but it is a safeguard in case higher levels of something like copper (from your plumbing) should arise, so it won't hurt.
 
There are a couple of very good quality conditioners that deal with the afore-mentioned only, that are often adequate; thinking of API Tap Water Conditioner, Kordon's NovAqua, and some others.  But beyond this, we get into problems.  Additives can be useless at best, or actually harmful to fish at worst.  Which brings me to the Jungle Start Right, which contains Aloe Vera.  This has now been proven in scientific tests to harm fish, so I would not use any conditioner containing aloe vera (there are a couple others, can't remember which off hand).  Nutrafin's Aqua Plus contains "pure herbal extract" but doesn't say what exactly, so I would avoid this (may well be aloe vera); it also has valerian in it, and I am certainly at a loss to explain how this could be beneficial.
 
Some conditioners also detoxify ammonia, and a couple nitrite, and one nitrate.  This is only useful if you have these in the source water.  The healthy aquarium bio-system can easily handle those occurring from fish.
 
Byron.

Based on this data which is from my city's water supply and where I get my water from, could you recommend a good water conditioner, if I need one?

Thanks

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Ohh and this will be a lightly planted tank so id like to leave the ammonie, nitrite and nitrates alone

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[Byron]

That's straight forward.  They add chlorine and chloramine, so you need a conditioner and most handle both.  Some heavy metals are listed, but the levels seem very low.  I'm not conversant with just how much is safe for fish compared to us.  [As an aside--I do know that the "safe" level of copper for humans (can't remember the number now) is high enough that it will kill fish, so a conditioner that detoxifies heavy metals is a good idea as I mentioned previously.]
 
For value, the API Tap Water Conditioner is about the best you can get; it may seem expensive, but per volume it comes out much less expensive over months and years because it is highly concentrated so you use very little; 1 drop treats a gallon.  I've been using this for a couple years now and am very pleased with it.
 
GH is given as 112 ppm, equivalent to 6 dGH, which is pretty near ideal.  Plants should thrive, and soft water fish will have no issues.  For hardwater fish I would increase the GH.  Just mentioning this as I see it, though not part of the initial issue.
 
Byron.

 

[Alexp08]

Thanks for the info! I was planning on soft water fish as it was so im glad to hear i wont have to do much to accommodate. Thanks for the info!

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