Lfs Wouldnt Sell Me Pond Dechlorinator

[ebrcknrdg]

They said it would be too strong for an aquarium!! Is this true?

 

[merry78]

it's very concentrated, but AFAIK you just work out the relative dosage and go from there...

 

[kewskills]

^^ditto above^^

 

[Amerce]

Cause I have so many tanks I always buy pond dechlor but just reduce the amount I use accordingly.

Buy it from a garden centre where they have ponds/fish etc it is a lot cheaper than buying it from a lfs as well if you can.

I also buy the pond sponges (sheets) and cut them down for size, I use these for the external filters I have on the house tank and the larger tanks in the fish house, the others are all huey hungs or other air driven filters (UG etc).

 

[ebrcknrdg]

Cause I have so many tanks I always buy pond dechlor but just reduce the amount I use accordingly.

Buy it from a garden centre where they have ponds/fish etc it is a lot cheaper than buying it from a lfs as well if you can.

I also buy the pond sponges (sheets) and cut them down for size, I use these for the external filters I have on the house tank and the larger tanks in the fish house, the others are all huey hungs or other air driven filters (UG etc).

Hi, ive got the pond sheets they sold me these, but even when i said i could reduce dosage of dechlorinator they advised me against it. So i shelled out £4 for a small bottle of dechlorinator for aquariums

 

[xxBarneyxx]

it would most likely be fine if you worked out the correct dosage. Personally though I would prefer to spend a bit more and know that if I screw up I'm not going to kill everything

 

[BigIan]

ITS VERY hard to overdose on dechlor...
pond dechlor is fine aslong as you work out the doseage

 

[ebrcknrdg]

Mixed answers here guys. Anyone been using it for a long time with no adverse effects?

 

[*Fishkies*]

I had asked a while back about buying pond dechlorinater instead of regular dechlorinator because it's cheaper to buy a bigger bottle then the smaller ones. I was told that pond dechlorinater was more concentrated in product. However you just want to be sure with how much you are dosing.
Also there have been other people on here with experiences of accidently overdosing with other water dechlor's however it can't effect the fish that greatly. As it is just a dechlorinater.

 

[PRW1988]

I used pond dechlor for a while, personally I don't recommend it because it's so concentrated and getting the exact dosage for an aquarium is a pain, I'd just use the regular stuff designed for the aquarium.

 

[Amerce]

I have over 15 tanks and pre warm and dechlor my watr at least one day before using it, I use a large swing bin for doing this in and use about a capful of the stuff for the full bin, never had problems with that.

If you only have one tank then of course care is required, but you just have to calculate how much water you are going to change and use dechlor appropriately. For me it is more cost effective, although I have on occassion risked not using cause I don't use the tap water straight away and run a sponge filter in the bin as well as having a heater in there, so any chlorine etc is usually vented befoe I get around to using it, but if I want to do a water change at the weekend then I defo use dechlor just in case the water board are venting any of their systems.

 

[ebrcknrdg]

Hm Interesting! Think ill see how many water changes this bottle will do me then if im forking out for more dechlorinator anytime soon ill be getting the pond one

 

[Rob.S]

Another possible consideration Emma......... With your 2 tanks, your water changes will ony use small amounts of dechlorinator. Presumably this has a "sell by date" (mine does), so, if you bought (say) a 1 litre bottle of the pond stuff, you might find it out of date, and still have a load of it left; which (in theory) you would throw away.

 

[jayjay]

I've used pond dechlor for months, probably over a year now actually. I just put a rough amount in, I don't measure it. But if you research this matter, you'll notice how people have tested the affects of dechlor and found there's no need. I know quite a few people who don't use any at all. There was a thread with a lot of scientific backed reasons why delchor isn't needed.

I found the quote

Well, a quick perusal of the scientific literature came up with some rather surprising results.

Firstly, and most surprising to me, the problem ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) growing in water utilities' facilities is becoming a somewhat serious issue. The chloramine does in fact, promote the growth of AOB and NOB, with the consequences -- written is a nice non-threatening way as -- "...the addition of chloramines can lead to biological instability in a drinking water distribution system by promoting the growth of nitrifying bacteria..." and "The resulting reduction in chloramine residual and development of a microbial community in the distribution system lead to water quality deterioration and violation of drinking water regulations." I think that I might very well have put a little more emphasis on violations of the drinking water regulations.

Basically, because the AOB and NOB grow, they excrete other organic compounds allowing other bacteria to grow. At the very minimum, this additional bacteria will require more chloramine to kill it off, but then, more chloramine promotes more growth of AOB and NOB, and I think you can see where this cycle is going... Here is the really bad news, with this extra growth, all that stuff we don't want in there could grow now, like the coliform bacteria (E. coli -- think spinach), and viruses, and Guardia lamblia and so on. All of these are pretty strictly required to be below certain levels by the U.S. EPA, and similarly in other countries.

Secondly, the really interesting part is that in lab test after lab test, the recommended exposure times and concentrations of chloramines do their jobs. The chloramines in the lab kill off all the organics, including the AOB and NOB. However, at the utility side of the issue, nitrification episodes are rather commonplace. One recent study found 63% of U.S. chloramining utilities and 64% of Southern Australian utilities tested positive for nitrifying bacteria.

One hypothesis for the discrepancy between the laboratory studies and operating results is that there are AOB strains
growing in full-scale systems that possess a greater chloramine resistance than those studied in the kinetic experiments. Whether the AOB strains used in earlier kinetic studies are representative of significant strains involved in full-scale nitrification episodes has not been confirmed, since there are no published evaluations of AOB diversity in chloraminated distribution systems.

This quote, and the above ones, from Regan, Harrington, and Noguera: "Ammonia- and Nitrite-Oxidizing Bacterial Communities in a Pilot-Scale Chloraminated Drinking Water Distribution System" Applied and Enviromental Microbiology 2002. The study where the %'s came from was Wolfe et al. "Occurrence of nitrification in chloranimated distribution systems" Journal (American Water Works Association), 1996

In other words, the strains that are in the water utilities have become more resistant to chloramines, and can indeed use the ammonia present as sustenance.

And, back to fishtanks, where do the AOB and NOB come from in the first place? Well, if you used tap water, they probably came from your water utility, and if a resistant strain has grown there... that same chloramine resistant strain is probably now growing in your tank too. The Regan et al. study cited above and Regan et al. "Diversity of nitrifying bacteria in full-scale cloranimated distribution systems" Water Research, 2003, was among the first to use DNA sequencing to distinguish all the different AOB and NOB that are growing. Some of the names should be pretty familiar: AOBs Nitrosospira, Nm. oligotropha and NOBs Nitrospira, Nitrobacter

So, it seems that AOB and so on can become resistant, or at the very least, as mentioned in the above posts, the chloramine levels are certainly not designed to sterilize a colony of bacteria as large in number as we culture in our tanks and so chloraminated water probably is not going to ruin a fishtank.

All that said, I think I am still going to continue to use my conditioner. It is pretty cheap, and better safe than sorry. However, I am not going to fret if I forget, or if a water change is due up and I haven't been to the LFS lately to get a new bottle.

Oh, and of course, I will now be nice and worried about our water supply.

 

[rdd1952]

ITS VERY hard to overdose on dechlor...

I agree. You could probably put a gallon in a 10 gallon tank and do no harm. I know from seeing an email from API that they say it is impossible to OD the tank.