Dechlorinators: to use or not to use?

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Sep 30, 2009
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Ok, I have had very mixed reviews regarding dechlorinators/conditioners. I have 2 friends locally that have been keeping fish for 20+ years and never used a dechlorinator/conditioner and thier fish are great. They let the water stand for a minimum of 24 hours and away they go. On another fourm everyone says you MUST use it or your fish will die. Here is my situation:

I have double and triple checked with the water company they DO NOT USE chloramine in the water. They ONLY USE chlorine which I know will evaporate out. I had a tank a few years ago (4 or 5 to be exact) I used dechlorinator then started a fishless cycle, did the water changes always with dechlorinator, cycle finished add fish they all died within a few hours (roughly 5 hours). Ok thought I had done something wrong. Dumped everything in the tank and started over (this time with out dechlorinator) confirmed that my tank was cycled added the fish they were great untill my first water change. Added water using dechlorinator all the died with in hours. Please note that I had hardy fish (zebra danios) and prior to death showed no signs of illness. Ok so I gave up I figured I just wasn't meant to have a fish tank. Well I thought I would try again. So far everything has been fine, I used dechlorinator when I set up the tank let it sit for 72 hours, started and finished cycle, and then added fish - no further dechlorinator at this point fish are great.

Basically do I need to use water conditioner? I was on another fourm and the chastized me for not using it. But as I said MY WATER DOES NOT CONTAIN CHLORAMINE. My only other concerns is the city did say there could be trace amounts of Copper and/or Lead in the water. I am really really nervous about using water conditioner as I have had dead fish with in hours of using it in the past, and yes my doses were correct, and yes I treated the water prior to putting it in the tank, I never treated tank directly from the bottle of conditioner.

Thanks
 
Just get a basic dechlorinator that doesn't mess withthe ph, there are some that "stabilize" it, which then swings the ph and caused fish to die.
Prime, topfin (petsmart brand) are the cheapest. If you are going to keep inverts then you will need one to detoxify those heavy metals.

FYI, your tank takes 3-4 weeks to fishless cycle, what kind of test kit are you using? And remember to temp match the water you are putting in.
 
Yes I know that sorry I didn't make my self clear, I let the water sit for 72 hours then started the fishless cycle, I think it was actually 5 weeks before the tank finished cycling, then I added the fish.
 
You should be able to massively overdose water conditioners with no ill effect.

Is it possible that the water company was flushing the lines, or doing similar work when you last had the problem. I've never heard of anyone having a fish kill after use of normal declor products.

That being said, if all you've got is chlorine in the water, and you don't mind leaving water sitting around for a bit to have the chlorine gas off it should be fine. Maybe just have a small bottle of Prime around in case of an emergency situation.

There are people who report no ill effects from small amounts of chlorine when doing small waterchanges (10-15%), but I have not tried this personally.
 
Aphotic Phoenix said:
You should be able to massively overdose water conditioners with no ill effect.

Is it possible that the water company was flushing the lines, or doing similar work when you last had the problem. I've never heard of anyone having a fish kill after use of normal declor products.

That being said, if all you've got is chlorine in the water, and you don't mind leaving water sitting around for a bit to have the chlorine gas off it should be fine. Maybe just have a small bottle of Prime around in case of an emergency situation.

There are people who report no ill effects from small amounts of chlorine when doing small waterchanges (10-15%), but I have not tried this personally.
Click to expand...

Thanks I really just wanted to confirm. I have had my new tank running now for about 12 week (4 of which were fishless cycling) so basically I have had the tank with fish for about 8 weeks or so, I have been doing water changes weekly by just allowing the water to sit out. I have a large 5 gallon water dispenser that sits perfectly on the shelf of the aquarium stand, and basically I just keep that filled all the time. Fill a 1 gallon container from the larger 5 gallon and put it into the tank (of course checking water temp etc). I have been doing that for a couple of months now with no problems. I was mostly concerned with the small amounts of copper and/or lead that the water company said might in the water. But so far dechlorinating water the old fashioned way has been just fine. Thanks
 
I would just use the dechlorinator. I take what the water company states with a grain of salt. I compared their stated values with our experimental values and it is way off. For example, our experimentally determined value for CaCO3 using photospectroscopy was roughly double of what the water company was stating. The TDS was roughly double as well.

Also the water company will sometimes flush their system if some kind of an outbreak occurs locally. Our water reported that it will temporarily cease using chloramine and will only use chlorine due to some kind of an outbreak a while ago. I'm not sure if the opposite might happen...
 
What brand of dechlorinator were you using?
 
I can smell the chlorine in my water ugh tastes nasty i miss living in north carolina where we had a spring
 
Products like Prime are completely safe- remove heavy metals too- and just in case your water company changes policy and starts using Chloramines at some point- will protect your fish.



Did you match temperature of water before doing the water change? It could be you're having more success with water changes when leaving the buckets out all night because that get's them to room temperature- if previously you were adding cold water out the tap it could have shocked the fish!
 
i dont use any type of dechlor.. my little towns water comes straight out of a mountain river
 
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