Heard something yesterday that I had never heard before

tazcat70

tazcat70

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Jun 17, 2009
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I was at a fish store and there was a guy (customer) there. I was buying some Prime and he was saying if you are just filling the tank for evaporation purposes that you do not need to add declor, because it like salt does not evaporate.

I have always added declor to my water before adding it to my tank. I don't use RO.

Is this true?
 
Don't know... think I would add dechlor anyway because it takes a few minutes to take all the chlorine out anyway- wouldn't want to sting my poor fish/inverts.

Not that I have that issue- I've never had to refill a tank due to evaporation... I don't get much evaporation... I have a lid- and it stays pretty humid most of the year here so there isn't much evaporation week to week between my weekly tank maintenance.
 
There's no way to tell how much leftover available dechlor is left in the tank (if any, i'm sure its not indefinitely stable once added to the tank) so I would continue to dechlor topoff water.
 
even if it didn't dissapate, you're supposed to use a set ammount per gallon of water, it's a chemical reaction, there'es only so many reactions that ammount of declor can accomplish before there is too much for it to handle.
It'd be like pouring enough vinager on baking soda that it stopped fizzing, then coming back the next day and adding more vinager and expecting another reaction.
 
I've always been told that if you set chlorinated water out for 24 hours, all the chlorine evaporates out. And, that DeChlor is just a way to hurry up the process. Am I misinformed? If not, I prefer to not add more chemicals.

Waiting to find out if I am to become reaffirmed, or re-informed. LOL...


Gold Fin
 
Chlorine, if properly agitated will gas off..CHLOAMINE will not. Which is what is used in most stateside water treatment systems, solely or in conjunction with chlorine.
 
That may have been true for chlorine, but *chloramine* is different and lots of municipal water has switched to using this sanitizer since it is more stable than chlorine. So unless you are sure you only have chlorine in your water (for example, you have a private well which you shock) then I would continue to add dechlorinator. A quality dechlorinator like Prime also neutralizes heavy metals, so that is an added benefit. If you have old pipes it's a must to use whether or not the water has sanitizer in it, IMO
 
I replace a gallon of water in my 38G tank every other day due to evaporation and don't add dechlor. I just add it with water changes, and even so it is not with every water change (but this I do not recommend). A little water every now and then due to evaporation never thought it would hurt, so I guess here they use chlorine and with the movement of the filter it dissipates (just as I thought it did).
 
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