Proof that aloe does anything?

I also use dechlor when doing water changes... however there may be a time and a place to use aloe.... humans use aloe on burns and cuts to help them heal and it does help to speed the process up. So maybe you are treating a fish that has ich and doing frequent water changes and trying to heal the wounds from the paracite before they become secondary infections from fungus as what usually happens, so along w/ the meds why not use some water conditioner w aloe in it? maybe you are a cichlid nut and your cichlids pick on other fish all of the time and there is a constant supply of open wounds in the tank why not use aloe if you are a careful fish keeper to give them nothing but the best.... but than again I dont think a cautious fish keeper would ever allow that situation to hapen. Maybe it gives the fish keeper peace of mind knowin he/she treats his fish as good as himself by givin their fish the same thing he uses on themselves

The Skepticle Aquarists website has a decent bit of info on Dechlorinators, and the items they contain.

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/water/conditioners.shtml

Being someone who has used stress coat (Contains aloe) at minimal and heavy levels I can say that my experience is that aloe is nothing but water pollution. As is pointed out in the link above, Aloe works it's magic because it is a moisturizer, fish generally don't have issue with dry skin, and if they do they'll need more than aloe to help them.

Stress coat is an O.K. Product for dechlorinating water and nothing more in my opinion. At minimum reccomended dosage the aloe doesn't seem to cause any trouble, at heavier dosages, it creates a nasty white Film on the surface of the tank, and IMO it irritates the fish somewhat. Heavy doses of Aloe added water treatment will often result in flashing which is to me a sure sign of either gill irritation or gill Blackage. Neither of these are good things to me.

Just my thoughts and observations, no real science behind it.
Dave

yeah, it does something:

makes an icky slimy film to skank up the top of your tank water. ugh. :thud:

we used to use Aquasafe (added aloe), but we've since switched to Amquel+.

the fish look just as slimy as ever.

I don't know if it does any good or not, I have never used any products with it nor am I a biologist. I go by the theory that if its not in the water in nature, then my tank doesn't need it. That being said, I use a conditioner that removes chloramins and chlorine only. I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that you won't any measureable ammounts of aloe anywhere where fish like in nature.

if u do overdose, how long until it returns to normal. i just added two new bolivian rams, and put fairly heavy dose of stress coat in teh water, and now the water is all cloudy. how long until the water is back to normal water clarity. thanks.

MY experience (Once again not scientific data) is that aloe is fairly inert, you'll have to change water out to remove it back to reasonable levels. Use the absolute minimum reccomended for the amount of water you change, and that should bring levels down enough for things to clear up. Stress coat really isn't a bad product for the money, but it certainly contains and claims things it should not.

Look for the cheapest generic dechlorinator you can find in the future unless you have chloramines in which case you will want Prime or Amquel plus.
Dave

I don't know about it's uses in fish tanks but I can't ever have enough aloe around for myself! I have found that it is the best moisturizer I have ever found...it does wonders on dry, chapped skin in the winter and in the summer it workes great on my sunburned skin (even though I sit under an umbrella all day! Who does that, get sun burned under an umbrella? Must be the Hurley in me!)

Now, for fish.... :huh: ?

I jsut read my bottle and my dechlore contains my stery herbs to protect teh slime coat...hmmm maybe aloe?

Oh well I don't notice any strage side affects or anything.

I was using some dechlore for a long time in my vivarium before I heard about chloramine, and I have no idea if my water has that or not so i figure better to be safe than sorry, especialy with crappy city water in LA.