Water Change

[Bobby2415]

I just purchased a python no spill hose and gravel cleaner to change my water. Before that I was doing buckets of water and I would put tap water conditioner in the bucket of new water before putting in tank. How do I go about using the tap water conditioner if the water is going to be going straight from my faucet to the tank? Is it ok to fill the tank and then put the appropriate amount of conditioner in the tank?

Thanks!

 

[fish48]

put the conditioner in first then fill the tank

 

[Guppylover3x]

I agree with fish48. I imagine it isn’t good for the fish to be put directly into tap water that contains a lot of chlorine.

Best of luck.

 

[Fishmanic]

Be sure to add the proper amount of conditioner for the volume of the entire tank. I first add the conditioner, distributing it around the edges of the surface. . When I first start adding the water to the tank, I agitate the top surface thoroughly first with incoming water and then move python tube down and around the tank. This procedure will quickly distribute the conditioner throughout the tank. Then I just rest the tube in the tank by locking tube under the hob filter and let it finish filling as I carefully watch it so as not to overfill.

 

[Colin_T]

Any new water should be free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to an aquarium containing fish and other aquatic organisms.

The Python gravel cleaner is in my opinion, bad for fish. You cannot guarantee the new water gets dechlorinated before the fish swim through it and that means the fish can be harmed by the chlorine/ chloramine in the water.

If you want to use it then fine, but you would be better off filling some big plastic buckets (rubbish bins, storage container) with water and adding dechlorinator to that water, then aerate it for at least 5 minutes. After that you can bucket the dechlorinated water into the tank or use a small water pump and length of hose to pump it into the tank.

Adding chlorinated water to an aquarium with fish, usually ends in disaster.

 

[Essjay]

Be sure to add the proper amount of conditioner for the volume of the entire tank

A few years ago I was told off on this forum for saying that. I was told by everyone that it is only Seachem Prime that needs to be dosed for the whole tank (as per their instructions) but every other dechlorinator should be dosed for the volume of new water only.


Which is true?

 

[Byron]

I have been using a Python for water changes of 60-70% of the tank volume since 1995 and so far I have not lost a single fish that could in any way be traced back to the chlorine. However, there are risks depending upon what is in your source water, and how much.

Chlorine alone will easily be detoxified by most of the conditioners we use. Chloramine adds a further risk, as you need double to amount of conditioner and it breaks apart chemically creating ammonia. I only have chlorine, and at times depending upon the season it can be at a higher level. But I would never resort to preparing tubs of water outside the tank; I would have given up the hobby if I had had to do this for the past 25 years with my hundred-plus gallon tanks.

I begin the refill by adjusting the adapter at the faucet, then I head down into the fish room and add dechlorinator sufficient only for the volume of water being changed. [I'll have more on this in my response to essjay's post that just beeped]. Adding more than this is harmful to the fish as it gets inside them and this needs to be kept minimal, provided it is sufficient to handle what is needed. Manufacturers claiming one can over dose their conditioner by double or triple with no harm are misleading you.

 

[Byron]

A few years ago I was told off on this forum for saying that. I was told by everyone that it is only Seachem Prime that needs to be dosed for the whole tank (as per their instructions) but every other dechlorinator should be dosed for the volume of new water only.

Which is true?

Under normal conditions, no conditioner needs to be dosed for the entire tank volume, but only sufficient for the amount of water being changed.

I went into this in depth with Neale Monks a year or so back when a thread on this forum brought this up. Dr. Monks said that most people recommend more conditioner because they want to ensure there is sufficient; assessing the actual volume of water being changed is sometimes guesswork for many, and overdosing is safer than under-dosing depending upon what is in the water. But as far as using sufficient for the entire tank volume when only say half is being changed, there is no benefit to this.

Conditioners work rapidly and immediately. I use the API because it does nothing more than what I need (chlorine, heavy metals though the metals in my water are not an issue but most detoxify heavy metals anyway) and it is the most highly concentrated conditioner on the market so you need very little.

 

[Colin_T]

If we are getting technical, we should be measuring the chlorine/ chloramine levels in the water supply and then treat the tank for the amount of chlorine/ chloramine that will be added to the tank.

Using a standard dose of dechlorinator is fine for removing chlorine/ chloramine at a normal (safe for human consumption) level. However, if the water company does work on the pipes and increases the amount of chlorine, then a normal single dose might not be sufficient.

Many years ago I was losing fish after water changes and I was dechlorinating the water in holding tanks for a couple of days before using it. I was also getting stomach pain when I drank tap water. After months of jumping through hoops for the water company, they eventually sent a guy out to test our tap water. My tap water had 3.5 times the safe recommended level of chlorine in it. The maximum safe level was 2 and our water was 7.5.

It turned out the idiots that control our water were adding chlorine at every pumping station.

Originally we had dam water and it was chlorinated at the dam and then flowed past people's houses where they used it. The government decided to start adding ground water to the dam water, so they chlorinated it at the dam, then pumped the water to a mixing station where they added chlorinated ground water and after mixing they added more chlorine. Then they pumped it back up the hill to everyone's house.

This was made worse when the government decided to add desalinated water to the drinking water. They chlorinate the water at the beach after they have removed the salt. They chlorinate the water at the ground water station and the dam. They bring them all together at a mixing station and chlorinate it again. And depending on how far away you live, they might chlorinate it a couple more times just for good measure.

In summer they also increase the amount of chlorine due to the hot weather encouraging possible harmful organisms in the drinking water. And whenever they do work on the pipes they double up the chlorine.

So a single standard dose might be safe if the water company has not done any work on the pipes or if the weather is cool. But it might not be safe in hot weather or if work has been done on the water pipes. Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure is to either work for the water company or test the chlorine levels in the tap water before using it.