Water Conditioners

[fiskkeeperpro]

my water conditioner that remove chlorine and chloramine is running out, as they are quite pricey, what do you you to remove your chlorine and chloramine?

 

[shelaghfishface]

use water conditiners... but in the old days, did nt they let the water stand for 24 hours or something ,

 

[minxfishy]

You could leave it to sit for 24 hours but that only removes chlorine not chloramines - so depending on whether your water company adds chloramines depends on whether this will work. Trouble is if you need water for an emergency water change you wont have any ready, plus if you have large tanks thats a lot of buckets of water to have lying around.

Tip I read was to buy pond dechlorinator, cheaper and more concentrated so you end up using much less. I shall be trying that myself when my current load is gone - anything to save a few quid.

 

[flash22]

use water conditiners... but in the old days, did nt they let the water stand for 24 hours or something ,

correct before thay started putting chloramine in the water iirc the chloramine bonds its self to the H2O so it doesn't evaporate


if you cant afford a big bottle you can get a small one for 3-4 quid to tide you over (been there done that)

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

SeaChem Prime. It only takes two drops per gallon, and even the smallest bottle lasts me months.

On another forum we actually did a price comparison and couldn't find another aquarium conditioner that was more cost effective (not counting pond conditioners)

 

[Corleone]

Step farther towards the cheap, I use Weco Dechlor. One drop per gallon, and a bottle costs less than Prime. I haven't hit the half way point on my first bottle, and it's going on ten months old. It doesn't remove ammonia the way Prime does, so if you have chloramine in your tap water, you'll be left with ammonia readings.

 

[rocknurworld2006]

my water conditioner that remove chlorine and chloramine is running out, as they are quite pricey, what do you you to remove your chlorine and chloramine?

prime defo the best and will last u ages mate

 

[backtotropical]

Prime is probably the best aquarium dechlorinator, but why use aquarium products when pond dechlor is exactly the same stuff for less money?

I personally use 'Kockney Koi Pond Dechlorinator' which i bought on Ebay. A 500ml bottle cost me £8 and will last me around 9 years (that is with doing weekly changes in my 260l tank). Now that is value for money!

Aquarium conditioners don't even come close in value terms, in fact they are an absolute rip off! I will never buy an aquarium conditioner again.

 

[aaronnorth]

i too use pond dechlorinators (pond doctor)

 

[Mr Bliss]

Wow, the idea of using pond dechlorinators had never occurred to me. *runs off to buy pond dechlorinator*

For people who like to know what's in their dechlorinators/water conditioners, and/or DIY fanatics, the German company Drak-Aquaristic lists the ingredients (and their concentrations) in their dechlorinator:

14.81 g/l potassium; 12.39 g/l DTPA; 9.21 g/l EDTA; 9.0 g/l carboxymethylcellulose (CMC); 8.76 g/l HEEDTA; 6.02 g/l NTA; 5.0 g/l Na-humate; 2.52 g/l calcium; 1.53 g/l magnesium; 1.13 g/l thiosulphate; 1.0 g/l methyl paraben; 0.5 g/l dexpanthenol; 0.2 g/l Aloe vera (Dried Extract - 1:200); 200 mg/l iodide; 10 mg/l lithium; vitamins (500 mg/l C; 100 mg/l each of B1, B6, niacin; 50 mg/l B2; 5 mg/l B12)

That stuff is meant to be dosed 1 ml/gallon, so I guess an industrious person could make their own dechlorinator using the same guidelines. You probably won't save much money compared to using pond dechlorinator, though. At the very least, if you run out of dechlorinator, you'll know you can use your own Vitamin-C supplements to dechlorinate your water.

The active dechlorinator is Vitamin-C. It supposedly inactivates chlorine at a 2.5 : 1 ratio (2.5 ppm of vitamin C will neutralize 1 ppm of chlorine). Most commercial products use sodium thiosulphate instead, because liquid vitamin-C needs to be stored in the fridge and can't be stored for very long. The advantage of vitamin-C is that any excess of it is guaranteed to be harmless and/or nutritious to the fish.

DTPA, EDTA, HEEDTA and NTA are all metal chelators for the purpose of removing free copper and other heavy metals from tap water. You can omit them if your tap water has no such issues.

Dunno what Na-humate is supposed to do there, but I assume it's intended as an organic chelator. It's a humic acid. Peat/carbon/bogwood in the tank would probably do whatever this is supposed to do.

I believe the CMC and Aloe Vera are supposed to protect the mucous membranes of the fish. I'm sceptical about that, and probably wouldn't bother.

Everything else is just for trace nutrition and fish skin/mucous layer protection. I'd leave it all out.

edit: Overlooked methyl paraben there. It's a mild anti-bacterial agent intended for the preservation of the stock solution, according to their home page.

 

[Piltdownpaul]

What concerns me is how long the different chemicals in the conditioner take to break down. Even something as common as petrol begins to go off after a month. Maybe somebody knows how long the conditioner will last.

 

[shelaghfishface]

BTT, will it still be good in 9 yrs?? seems llike an awful long time,

 

[Efren]

is there any expiry date or somethin'?



sounds like the Pond Dechlo
will suit for me too---

 

[Piltdownpaul]

A chemist might know whether certain types of chemicals in the dechlorinator will break down.

 

[backtotropical]

Theres certainly no expiry date on mine. I'm not sure if it would lose its effectiveness over time or not. Maybe one of our science bods can answer that for us?

Anyway, whether it breaks down or not, its certainly much better value than aquarium dechlorinator.