Water Change Question.

[Wordy]

Hi all,

Quick question about water changes if you don't mind?

When doing a water change I understand that a water treatment product should be added to the water(I'm using Interpet Tapsafe) But as doing something like a 30% water change requires more than one buckets worth of water, would I be ok to add the water to the tank THEN add the treatment, or is it important to add it to the water before it goes into the tank?

Thanks

 

[ChrisXL]

Treat it in the bucket. Safer as chlorine kills the good bacteria, I believe.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Wordy

It's better to add the dechlorinator directly to the tank and then add the water. It mixes quickly and will not harm the fish.

 

[markandhisfish]

opinions seem to vary on this. lots of people with big tanks use the hosepipe to re-fill then add the right amount of dechlorinator for the amount of water put in and do this with no problems at all. myself i prefer to know that the water is dechlorinated before it gos into the tank it just give me that little peace of mind.

 

[waterdrop]

I agree, I prefer to be on the safer side and condition water change water. Mark is right, there are strong opinions to both sides of the conditioner debate, but for us beginners I think its safer to condition.

Its perfectly ok to toss the conditioner directly into the tank, but when you do that, its recommended that you dose for the whole volume of the tank, not just the amount you're changing. That sounds wasteful, but usually the dechlor is so concentrated that the differance doesn't amount to much. Its even less if you realize that there are concentrated bottles of this stuff probably right in the same row in your store that are meant for ponds and are much cheaper!

So the drill is: siphon out (always gravel clean, don't shortcut that), dose in the dechlor (up to 2x recommended amount but not more than that if your tank is relatively new), take a cup of tank water for your hand to feel and use that to adjust your mixing tap to roughly the same temperature, hook up your long hose if you have one and refill the tank. In my own case I usually dose half the dechlor at the beginning of the hose fill, half at the end, but it really doesn't matter.

Hope that helps!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[raptorrex]

i think it works perfectly well, both ways. just choose the one that's the best for your method of water changes.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup never noticed any tangible difference adding it to the water the topping up the tank, to the tank before adding water or to the tank after adding water.

personally i dump 'some' (don't even measure it, just put a splash in) and then fill up with the hose.

people worry too much over dechlor, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it's not even needed and that our bacteria is now resistent to chlorine.

it's cheap, safe and easy to use so I always recommend that people do, but don't get hung up on the correct order to do it in or fly into a blind panic if you forget it one night. I'd be massively surprised if you suffered any ill effects because of it.

 

[Schmill]

Must admit depending which tank I'm doing I'll either put the dechlor in the buckets with the water, or else if I am doing my larger tank (witht the hose) then I will dose the tank BEFORE filling it. I figure doing it this way round is the 'second best' (after putting it directly in the buckets), as as soon as the water leaves the hose it is mixing with the dechlor in the tank. Otherwise It might take me 20 minutes to trickle fill the tank (so as not to chill it) with lovely clean chlorine filled water, before I would then get around to adding the dechlor.

Also to put it in perspective, I've JUST ordered myself a bottle of Seachem Prime to use as dechlor which seems to be massively more concentrated than the stuff I used previously. According to their website 5ml will treat 200L, so on my 300L tank I can add 7.5ml to treat the whole tank, and then add the water, or I can use 2.5ml to just treat the 30% of water I'm changing, and have to use buckets. In my mind the ease of using the hose to replace 100L of water over using buckets easily outways the 'wastage' of the extra 5ml of Prime involved

NOTE: This is all going by their website, I have yet to recieve my Prime bottle, so obviously haven't yet used it. As an idea of concentration, 5ml of Prime claims to treat 200L, where as the API StressCoat that I was using needs 5ml to treat just 38L.... (Also I just managed to get a 500ml bottle of Prime for the same price as my 250ml API bottle.... you do the maths )