Water Conditioner Harmful?

M

Midnite1971

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Dec 16, 2004
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If you use Prime or something similar for water changes and the water does not contain Chlorine, Chloramine or any other junk, does it affect the water in a negative way? Since the chemicals have no particular purpose, would it harm the fish?

Thanks
Tim
 
I worried about the same thing. Everyone here is of the opinion that it is fine as long as you don't do a massive (half the bottle) overdose.
 
Prime and Amquel can be overdosed, so presumably adding them when you know no chemical is present to require treatment could be a problem. For many other conditioners, they add other products, like aloe, which is not needed anyway. In terms of harming the fish--I'm of the opinion that if it doesn't benefit the fish, it shouldn't be there. Doesn't means it's harmful, just that it isn't helpful, so why run the risk of it having an unexpected negative impact?
 
So what is a good conditioer to use if you have no chlorine or chloramine? My water source is from a well and these two things aren't present but I am not sure if there are any metals.
 
Without knowing if there's anything to treat, no way to recommend a good product. I prefer to add as little as possible to the water. Also realize that even the products that claim to 'detoxify metals' really just bind it up and leave it in the tank. If you are worried about toxins, filtering the water prior to use is a much better option.
 
As I only have chlorine and not chloramine in my water supply I usually let my waster off gas. I am not too worried about the levels of metals as it is safe enough for me to drink.

You can probably have your water supply company test your water and give you a report back. Sometimes they charge if it is well water.
 
I use it when I have ammonia spikes for whatever reason (unseen plant decay, whe I cycled with fish in the tank- BAD LISA!). I also have chlorine and chloramine. I don't trust that it effects other chems. but I think it helps with ammo.- I get crazy with that...don't like any in my tank...however I do water changes everytime there is an ammonia problem, so I figure it gets the ammo left behind from the water change and I need it for the chloramines. Point is it needs to go in anyway, so I like to believe it helps with ammonia.

Also if it is late or I don' t have time to change the tank, I will put prime or ammoloc to ease the ammo. until I can change the water a little later.

Lisa
 
Well..If your water doesn't have chlorine, chloramine, etc...then simply don't use the Prime. It isn't needed.
 
FisheyLisa said:
I use it when I have ammonia spikes for whatever reason (unseen plant decay, whe I cycled with fish in the tank- BAD LISA!). I also have chlorine and chloramine. I don't trust that it effects other chems. but I think it helps with ammo.- I get crazy with that...don't like any in my tank...however I do water changes everytime there is an ammonia problem, so I figure it gets the ammo left behind from the water change and I need it for the chloramines. Point is it needs to go in anyway, so I like to believe it helps with ammonia.

Also if it is late or I don' t have time to change the tank, I will put prime or ammoloc to ease the ammo. until I can change the water a little later.

Lisa
Click to expand...

In a cycled tank I doubt you will find ammonia spikes just from lack of water changes. The water changes are good at removing nitrates and other contaminents but ammonia and nitrite will be handled by bacteria which will grow to consume whatever level of ammonia is available. Even a decaying plant will probably not decay quick enough to cause any sort of ammonia spike. But chloramines might if they are not treated with something like Prime.
 
I wouldn't worry about about adding products like Prime or Amquel if there is no chlorine or chloramine in the water. I'm sure those products are safe. The concentration of the chemical remover is quite low anyways and only if you overdose greatly will there be a problem. I've been using both the blue and orange bottles of Amquel, even though I don't really need the blue one, and there have been no ill effects at all.
 
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