water conditioners etc

[alphabetta]

I am wondering about water conditioners and slime coat enhancers and all the stuff ya can dump in your water. I've been to buncha sites, and not all of what I've read agrees with each other. Myself, I go by the less you can put in the water the better.

Specifically, I would like to know

what products you all use to neutralise chlorine/chloramines,

whether or not you use something to neutralise ammonia and why you choose to do that or choose not to do that.

And about this stuff for the fish's slime coat...how necessary do you think it is and why, and wtf does it actually do??

And as for "binding heavy metals" how necessary is that and does it affect a planted tank

AND is it necessary to add anything else for plants in a planted tank?


thnx

[bortsamson]

for just chlorine, u can either gas it off, by aging water for a couple days, or using the usual chemicals available regularly
for chloramine, however, you want a chemical that says it takes care of chlorine/chloramine AND ammonia
I only know of 3 that do
Prime
Amquel
and Neutral 7.0 by Seachem
they break the chlorine and ammonia bond and then take care of the ammonia, making it harmless to fish
I use amquel+ and I can say its the best I have found
now, for "stress coats" and whatever else, from what have read and experienced, not worth it
never seen any benifits nor drawbacks
and "heavy metals" are only a concern if you know your water table like sits in iron or copper or somethin, give your water company a call and find out
Planted tanks need fertilizer, check the AQUATIC PLANTS section for help on that little dealie

[wigglejaggles]

hey now,

I pulled this website from a previous thread. Slappy found this one...

http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/rev-cond.htm

This is a great chart. Do a search on water conditioners and I am sure you will find all sorts of answers.

take care,
Jared

[maigen]

if ammonia/nitrite.nitrates are a problem or something you'd rather not have to think about then go with prime.

for chlorine/chloramine only i highly recommend aqua plus

stress reliever/stress coat.......don't waste your time & or money. have never seen that it makes any difference at all

[Celura]

I use NovAqua and Amquel. :)

[alphabetta]

yes Ive been to that site, I have it bookmarked right now....but you will notice that it has some confusing info right on that one single page.

For example in the chart it says Tetra Aquasafe completely removes chlorines, chloramines, ammonia, and heavy metals.
Just above that in manufacturers comments, it says Aquasafe will not remove ammonia from underfiltered, uncycled, overstocked tank.

So what does that mean, does it remove ammonia or not, or does it just remove it in a correctly stocked, etc tank but anything over that is too much for it to handle???

See..thats why I want some opinions from ppl who have experience with all these products, to go along with the info i found on the web.

[OrionGirl]

I would interpret that to mean that it is safe to use for treating water, where there is a rouch estimate on the amount of ammonia that will result from breaking the chloramine found in X gallons of water, but that it should not be used as a substitute for the biological filtration in a tank.

[JSchmidt]

See this thread... http://64.191.28.50/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25656

AquaSafe does nothing for ammonia. It only breaks the chlorine-ammonia bond and neutralizes chlorine, freeing the ammonia. Same is true of StressCoat and most other garden-variety dechlorinators.

Only products I know of that detoxify the ammonia, too, are Amquel, Prime and AmmoLock2.

HTH,
Jim

[OrionGirl]

I stand corrected--sigh. Thanks, Jim! :)

[boyohboy]

I use the Hagen AquaPlus. No particular reason, just that they are easy to find in store and subsequently can find them on sale often, eg I just bought a 16oz bottle on sale for $5.99Cdn, original was $12-14 or so. My town water has only chlorine, so really any of the conditioner will be fine, no need to buy the fancy expensive one. You may think the expensive is better but it's the same chemical, just like buying Tynenol vs generic acetoaminophen.

If for chloramine, duno how much of a concern the ammonia will be. But if you have a densely planted tank, they soak up the ammonia really quickly anyway.

As for the stress coat thing... the AquaPlus has aloe which they claim to act as stress coat. This is one of those things that it works if you believe it work, it doesn't if you don't think so. No real proof ; )

[anonapersona]

if you want to be really cheap, get sodium thiosulphate, 5 lbs for $16 shipped, 1 oz makes 1 quart of simple dechlorinator, no extras.

5 lbs = 80 ounces

80 ounces makes 80 quarts

Use at 1 drop per gallon of water.... Oh, man, this will last me for decades!

[alphabetta]

Great !! (cackle cackle happily) I got some good input. Yay. Not always a sure thing on message boards, too many ppl want to explain the process rather than just tell me what they use sometimes ;)

Just a couple more ?s, does the sodium thiosulphate take care of chlorine and chloramines? I know its the main thing in these products.

And since I have a planted tank, and since I would rather not use something that interferes with readings from ammonia tests, just a de-chlorinater/de-chloramineater should be sufficient right??

Thanks you all, appreciate it.

[meangene714]

anonapersona: where can I get some of this sodium thiosulphate, and how will I know concentration?

[boyohboy]

Originally posted by anonapersona
if you want to be really cheap, get sodium thiosulphate, % lbs for $16 shipped, 1 oz makes 1 quart of simple dechlorinator, no extras.

5 lbs = 80 ounces

80 ounces makes 80 quarts

Use at 1 drop per gallon of water.... Oh, man, this will last me for decades!
heh I guess that will work too :)
But see so far I have 2 bottle of 16oz AquaPlus, both on sale at different times, for a total of $15+tax Canadian dollar. They will probably last me for couple of years. Awhile ago one store has 2 Liter bottle for $19 Cdn too, didn't buy it tho. Still not as cheap as using thiosulphate, but bit easier for those not quite sure about chemicals. It's cheap enough I guess. For other stuffs like fertilizer I'd use chemicals, MUCH cheaper for those.

Talking about it... someone was looking for thiosulphate all over the place in our department (biochem labs)... I wonder why lol :D