De-Chlorinating Tap Water

[Grunt]

What's the best way? I have a bottle of Aqua Plus Tap Water Conditioner. The instructions say to add a cap-full to every 10 gallons. But when I do a water change I'm only adding 2-3 gallons, I have a ten gallon tank. So I try to adjust the conditioner but it's very inexact. Am I hurting the fish if I'm overdosing on the conditioner? Is it better to have a large bucket of water sitting and let the chlorine naturally evaporate out? Will it even do that?

New to this forum and relatively new to fish keeping. Thanks in advance.

Russ

1xZebra Danio
1xAustralian Rainbow
6xTiger Barb

 

[rrkss]

It won't hurt the fish if you are slightly overdosing on the conditioner. I measure out my conditioner with a syringe to be more accurate and precise (I use prime which is very concentrated for 3 gallons it would require 0.30 mL of prime for example). Just out of curiousity, how long have you had your tank?

 

[Grunt]

Thank you for your response rrkss. I've had the tank a little over a year. I started with three Danios to cycle the tank. Then added two Rainbows and two Corys. The remaining Danio and Rainbow are from the originals. The others have died over the course of the year. The last Cory died yesterday after I added the Barbs five days before. I don't know if the Barbs harassed it to death (I didn't notice any) or if adding that many new fish put the tank chemistry out of whack. This morning the nitrate level was very high so I changed some water. I used to check chemistry regularly when the tank was new but after several months of stable readings, I stopped. Do you think the rate of mortality I've seen over the course of the year is normal?

Russ

 

[Rbishop]

What has been your maintenance schedule on water changes and substrate vac's?

 

[Grunt]

Probably not as often as I should. I don't think I've gone more than 3 weeks between changes and vac. I change about 30% when I do.

Russ

 

[Fish Kate]

I use the same conditioner for my ten galllon tanks. I add 10 drops for every gallon (30 drops for a 3 gallon bucket) and never have a problem. I use an eyedropper left over from a smaller bottle of conditioner.

Six fish are a lot to add all at once to a ten gallon tank. I'm not an expert but I have lost some fish when I added too many at one time.