Chlorine Removers - do they work instantly?

yes they work instantly.

ammo-lock (i believe) binds (harmful) ammonia into (not so harmful) ammonium. some other water conditioners do this so it depends what you are comparing it with.

HTH

Chlorine removers work fast enough that you don't need to let the water sit in a bucket (after treatment) before adding it to the tank. You can add the treatment to the tank and add water directly.

Just a note: Aqua Plus says it removes chlorine, but it is one of the somewhat mislabeled products that claims to remove chloramine, but does so incompletely. Aqua Plus (like Stress Coat) does neutralized the chlorine found in chloramine, but does nothing for the ammonia freed when the chlorine-ammonia bond is broken. From the Hagen website (http://www.hagen.com/usa/aquatic/faq_questions.cfm?CAT=1&SUBCAT=121):

The product gets rid of chlorine (and chloramine) as a function of its purpose. It will not remove ammonia as part of the operation, but then, neither does Stress Coat.

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This makes a product like Amquel or AmmoLock 2 superior, IMO, for chloriminated water. Those products will not only take care of the chlorine, but also neutralize the ammonia. The answer, then, is yes, things like Amquel, AmmoLock and Prime do provide additional advantage over AquaPlus, StressCoat and similar products.

HTH,
Jim

I learned that the hard way!

I use stress coat in my tanks. I just started using a python to do my water changes. I have a large tank. I add the water directly from my tap to the tank. (A python is like a hose) I add the stress coat directly to the tank while it is filling. I haven't had any problems. I don't use an ammonia remover, I like to keep everything in my water as natural as possible. The more you add to your water the more osmotic stress you will put on your fish. I find that frequent water changes will help keep the ammonia down. Also do you test for ammonia now? HTH. Letty

The problem is that if your water is treated for chloramines, it already has ammonia in it, so concerns about keeping water natural are probably secondary (in my way of thinking, anyway) to keeping it non-toxic to fish.

If you only have chorine in your water, I agree, the less added the better. I might add that most native waters from which hobby fish come don't have "slime coat enhancers' and aloe, like StressCoat does. I'm not sure how adding that kind of stuff squares with keeping your water natural... but different strokes for different folks...

Jim