questions about water condintioner

First you have to know which disinfectant is used in your water, chlorine or chloramine. Call the water utility and ask.

I'm with you Palehorse. I too only use a dechlorinator, not an ammonia remover. I feel it may starve my bio filter and decrease population a bit too much. There's really no telling how much ammo it removes either, and whether it will keep removing ammo until it is all used up. If this is the case, it could take longer to get any food to bacteria in a lightly stocked tank.

I have a fish only tank and my fish are pretty hardy, so I haven't seen any problems using just dechlor. They also are large/messy cichlids which produce more ammonia than most. Maybe if I had very sensitive fish, I might think about it. It's safer IMO, to just let my Bio filter take care of any released ammonia. If I ended up starving some of my bacteria and lost a bit of them, chances are things would get worse than with the minor amount released from the chloramine unbinding. This is just my own opinion, and based on my own experience. Make your own judgements with your fish, though!

Amquel complexed ammonia is still bioavailable to the bacteria for the nitrification cycle, it is just complexed into the non-toxic ammonium form.

If you chose to expose your fish to toxic or potentially toxic ammonia, that is entirely your choice.

RTR, would you explain what happens when a conditioner breaks the ammonia-chloramine bond, and then Detoxifies the ammonia?
How does it "remove/detox" the ammo while still having it available to bacteria? I haven't seen anything on this topic before. Can you explain or point me at a website/thread?

Thanks

I hope you guys dont mind me jumping in here with a completely beginner question, but I've had gold fish most of my life, and have just started getting into tetras and other kinds of fish. I have been using a Proquatics bacteria starter for my tank. The instructions recommend using it weekly for existing aquariums, and claim that it helps eliminate toxic ammonia, but it sounds like you are using something else to get rid of ammonia. Do I need more than just this to keep my tank healthy?

-stone

I have been using AquaPlus for a few years and just today switched to Stress Coat.

"If you're de-chloraminating with commercial products, it's useful to know that Ammo-Lock2 (Aquarium Pharmaceuticals) and AmQuel (Kordon) each react with the ammonia to form non-toxic, inert, moderately stable substances. With these products, the ammonia is bound, but not actually removed. It does remain available to the nitrifying bacteria, I understand; that's an important consideration. Each company presents a clear un-hyped analysis of its product, Kordon at www.kordon.com and Aquarium Pharmaceuticals at www.aquariumpharm.com"

(cut-n-pasted from www.skepticalaquarist.com )

I always just sort of assumed it somehow forced the Ammonia (NH3) to become Ammonium (NH4). This happens naturally at lower temps and pH.

Not the case at all, at least as far as Amquel. (I use Amquel and didn't work my way through WetMan's other link). An instructive evening, all in all.

I appreciate the insight and links, I'll look into them and chime in if I have any more questions. That's nice to know that they don't remove the ammo!