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Do you add any substance on water change day?

Frenchi

Frenchi

Member
Joined
15 Jan 2014
Messages
671
Location
West Yorkshire
Hi
Just wondering if you guys add any kind of substance to your tap water on water change day?
I use seachem prime to dechlorinate but is there anything else that would benifit a planted aquarium..
I'm using EI dosing and full co2 ..
Cheers

Mick


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I've used AmQuel+ on immature tanks that I have had to put fish in to keep ammonia under control.
 
I thought I had read somewhere that people added some kind of buffer or something to aid planted tanks .. My reading is poor and probably read it very wrong lol .. :)


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ian_m said:
Unless your tap water contains chloramine, in which case no change over night and dead filter bacteria in the morning....
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Hi Ian, Thank you :thumbup: Just re read up on this :eek: I have been very very lucky then. Been doing this for 2 years My fish and Amano shrimp have not had any ill affects ???

Will start using Seachem prime from now on :thumbup: Great thread Frenchi ;) Thanks again i am no longer in the dark on this :)
 
I use RO water and so I re-mineralise with JBL Aquadur. That's just because I refuse to use London tap water, though.
 
Greenfinger2 said:
Hi Ian, Thank you :thumbup: Just re read up on this :eek: I have been very very lucky then. Been doing this for 2 years My fish and Amano shrimp have not had any ill affects ???

Will start using Seachem prime from now on :thumbup: Great thread Frenchi ;) Thanks again i am no longer in the dark on this :)
Click to expand...

It depends on what your local water is treated with. The fact that your fish and shrimp are happy would point towards chlorine treatment rather than chloramine, so there shouldn't be a need to start dosing.....

Not sure if there's a precedent for water treatment changing though. i.e. if anyone with chlorine-treated water has ever woken up to find their treatment (by their provider) has changed to chloramine
 
Rahms said:
It depends on what your local water is treated with. The fact that your fish and shrimp are happy would point towards chlorine treatment rather than chloramine, so there shouldn't be a need to start dosing.....

Not sure if there's a precedent for water treatment changing though. i.e. if anyone with chlorine-treated water has ever woken up to find their treatment (by their provider) has changed to chloramine
Click to expand...

Thank you :thumbup:
I thought my water was treated with chlorine. That's why i was just leaving it over night. Only to read Thames water use chloramine :eek: Well you learn something new everyday on this great site :thumbup:
 
Rahms said:
if anyone with chlorine-treated water has ever woken up to find their treatment (by their provider) has changed to chloramine
Click to expand...
Yes. I have had chloramine injected twice (once at current house and once at last house) both after water main bursts and living downhill from the burst. Last house I had a leaflet pushed through door, about possible dirty tap water and not to use for fish tanks. In current house I had no water pressure and smelly "chloriny" water for days afterwards. Fish were fine as I was using Prime.

See this post. He lost £622 of fish due to chloramine being added in an emergency.
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/seachem-prime.32926/#post-349744

Also some areas of Scotland have changed from chlorine to chloramine due to logistical issues of chlorine supply in remote locations.

Note also RO units (especially cheaper ones) do not always guarantee chloramine removal. If you have chloramine and an RO unit you should really be using a bigger/better carbon pre-filter as chloramine is harder to remove than chlorine from water using standard carbon filters. There are special chloramine pre-filters designed to do this. If you don't do this the chlorine will ruin your RO membrane and the ammonia will pass straight through into the RO water.
 
Hi All, Been in deep thought 42 :D
Over why i have been so lucky not to have killed my fish or shrimp. When doing water changes. When there is chloramine in Thames water.

As i said "" I just leave my tap water in a 25Lt plastic water container over night "" One thing I thought of that i did not mention :) I live in the top floor flat of a small block there are two flats below. Being on the top floor we have the loft with a very large water tank up there "" Its Huge:eek: "" That supplied all three flats with bathroom water only :woot:The rest is supplied from the mains. The people who live below us in both flats are hardly ever there they work away a lot.

Well I only use the bath tap to refill the water container Never from the mains water.
This water could be in the tank how long ?????? We don't even use this water to clean our teeth :D So maybe this is the reason i have got away with it ???

Any thoughts on this will be appreciated :thumbup:
 
ian_m said:
Note also RO units (especially cheaper ones) do not always guarantee chloramine removal. If you have chloramine and an RO unit you should really be using a bigger/better carbon pre-filter as chloramine is harder to remove than chlorine from water using standard carbon filters. There are special chloramine pre-filters designed to do this. If you don't do this the chlorine will ruin your RO membrane and the ammonia will pass straight through into the RO water.
Click to expand...

Would the Chloramine show up in the TDS?
 
Chloramine gets broken down into chlorine and ammonia by the carbon prefilter. Usually the chlorine will get absorbed by the carbon if flow is slow enough but ammonia passes through the carbon and RO membrane.

Might affect tds as ammonia is probably ionised in resultant water.

All not a problem if using correct and not exhausted carbon prefilter.
 
Interesting article here on chloramine and RO units. Looks like a DI unit after the RO membrane will remove the ammonia passing through the membrane.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-11/rhf/feature/

So you need to make sure you carbon pre-filter is not worn out and DI resin isn't exhausted and you will be OK.

Again there are numerous reports of people killing all their fish when using RO water (especially marine) and the cause was failure to change carbon filter leading to saturated carbon pre-filter no longer removing chlorine/chloramine.
 
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