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Water changes without dechlorinator

You can simply just run an air stone in the bucket you're going to change over night. That will get rid of the chlorine not the chloramine. You could simple do a water change every day rather then them all at once.

I've tested the air stone method and found that it depends on the size of the bucket (and probably the size of the air stone, aeration rate, and chlorine level).

45 litre bucket needs 24 hrs, 90 litre one needs 32 hrs for the chlorine to be undetectable.
 
Really, if I worry about it, I will just order Seachem Safe.
A 250 g bottle equals a bit more than 3x500 ml bottles of Prime.
 
Hi all,
Guys, there isn't much chlorine at all in our water. As for the beneficial bacteria, nothing happens. I've been washing my filter media under the tap for years.
I wash the filter sponges etc under the tap as well, but I use rain-water for the water changes. I asked a microbiologist (with the proviso that is area of work is food safety), and he was fairly sure that there wasn't enough chlorine in the tap water to cause any problems with rinsing the sponges in tap water.

I think a lot of it depends on where you live. We have limestone aquifer water and it is very lightly chlorinated, if you have a surface water supply (from a river like the Thames etc.) it is likely to be much more heavily chlorinated. I would still worry about "emergency" chloramine, unless you have very heavily planted tanks and don't do large volume water changes.

If I was obliged to use tap-water in the tanks I would use Prime etc.
Well, I read many dechlorinators use EDTA to squeeze the metals. So dosing some micros fert may help the issue. Since usually there is an amount of excess EDTA in it. For example, this liquid Fe-EDTA contains a minimum of 10g/litre of excess EDTA.
EDTA would work for heavy metals, because they are strongly bound ions, but Fe EDTA won't, this is because iron (Fe) is the most strongly bound ion and won't be replaced by any other ions.

If you wanted to use EDTA, then sodium EDTA (Na EDTA) is the best option. Sodium will be replaced by all the other cations, and you can buy it easily via Ebay etc.

cheers Darrel
 
I asked a microbiologist (with the proviso that is area of work is food safety), and he was fairly sure that there wasn't enough chlorine in the tap water to cause any problems with rinsing the sponges in tap water.

cheers Darrel

Darrel,

Does it come down to exposure time? If we wash the sponges in tap water are they not exposed to the chlorine for long enough to have a detrimental affect?

I would assume that the chlorine level was high enough to kill bacteria or why add it?
 
Hi all,
Does it come down to exposure time? If we wash the sponges in tap water are they not exposed to the chlorine for long enough to have a detrimental affect?
Yes, I think it is to do with the time of exposure and the low levels of chlorine (less than 1 ppm in the UK). Chlorine definitely will kill those micro-organisms that it contacts. Details here <"Scientific American: How does ....">

I don't aim to get the filter media entirely clean, I just give it a rinse and then a couple of squeezes for the sponges. I have Asellus, MTS and Blackworms in most of the filters (and Rotifers in all of the internal and external filter sponges?), and they don't appeared bothered by a quick rinse in tap water either. I just run the dirty water through an aquarium net and chuck them back in the filter. I'm not sure what other people filters look like, but often after ~6 months there is very little mulm etc in the filter.

My suspicion would be that if you had a heavily chlorinated supply, and were reliant on microbial biological filtration in a canister filter, that even the small loss of biological filtration capacity (caused by rinsing in chlorinated water) might start the whole feed-back cycle of "build up of ammonia, loss of oxygen, fish death, higher ammonia etc."

If you don't have plants, and a substrate, you are always teetering on the brink of disaster, and people who keep large messy carnivorous fish are often those who are most resistant to the idea of plants and substrate.

cheers Darrel
 
Should we really be worried about heating up water for water changes? That must be expensive and I don't bother with it...

I have had water temps of 28/29 this summer and I just use tap water (with Prime). Once the 50% water change is done, the temp is back down to 22/23. I add the new water slowly and with the extra oxygen and crazy pearling the fish/shrimp seem perfectly fine.

P
 
Unfortunately water dechlorination is not optional for fish keeping in most of the world. (except Netherlands that uses hydrogen peroxide).

The presence of chlorine, up to 1ppm in most supplies, is brilliant at keeping the tap water pathogen free but is extremely damaging to fish, especially their gills and is deadly to the filter bacteria.

The reason a lot of people often get away with out dechlorination is the chlorine will react with organics in the water, thus being neutralised before it kills the fish and filter bacteria. Often the people who can't be a*sed to dechlorinate also have the dirtiest tanks so never see the effects of chlorine on their fish and filter bacteria.

If you are worried about cost (and health of your fish) use sodium thiosulphate, 1Kg for £7 odd will dechlorinate 100,000 litres of water. Or simply bubble air through the water 24hours before use.

Note the bubbling will not remove the even more deadly chloramine that is getting more and more common in the UK which has to be removed using chemical dechlorinator.

Note that RO systems and HMA filters do no guarantee chlorine/chloramine removal especially if carbon pre-filter is getting old. You should really test the water from these systems for both chlorine and ammonia (breakdown from chloramine) before use.

Chloramine is often added to UK water supplies in an emergency ie burst pipe in the area.

Here is the last entry of a guy who lost £620 of fish due to chloramine being added to water and not using dechlorinator "as it is not necessary".....
http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/410456-22-aquariums-wiped-out/
 
My water report, does anyone make any sense of it?

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I can't even figure the amount of chlorine from that report?
No use whatsoever. This is the report showing that your water company is complying (well some are 92% compliant) with EU set maximum contaminant levels. If you are using dechlorinator with heavy metal removal it will remove the residual heavy metals in your water as well. There is no definite proof that heavy metals in UK water are high enough to cause fish & bacteria any issues. If worried (??) just use an HMA filter.

Chlorine levels in UK will be typically be 0.1ppm to 2ppm going to 5ppm in some cases. Above 1ppm you can start to smell & taste the chlorine in the water.

Here is a link about UK water treatment using chlorine.
http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/sci...min/zCIWEMPOTWAT/Activity5/act5.html#chlorine

UK use of chloramine.
http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/sci...dmin/zCIWEMPOTWAT/Activity5/act5.html#chloram

Link in toxicity of chlorine and chloramine for fish keeping (commercial large scale, but still applies for your tank).
http://web.utk.edu/~rstrange/wfs556/html-content/06-water.html
 
Thanks Ian. I am not in the UK. I am in Ireland. The last time I found info on chlorine here, it said our levels are about 0.15ppm
I actually just read a link about chlorine causing deformities and other defects in humans too. So I don't doubt it's harmful.
I'll try to get Seachem Safe from amazon.com as soon as I can. That works out cheapest and easy to dose. Sodium Thiosulphate delivered here will cost me around 20 euro and then I can't measure it. HMA filter is out of question for varuous reasons.
 
Darrel,

Does it come down to exposure time? If we wash the sponges in tap water are they not exposed to the chlorine for long enough to have a detrimental affect?

I would assume that the chlorine level was high enough to kill bacteria or why add it?


One might could also assume that chlorine level's are possibly high enough to warrant the sales /recommendation of dechlorinator use No?
 
What is the damage if I do that long term?

I've been doing large water changes without dechlorinator for the last 4 weeks on two tanks. That's because I ran out of dechlorinator and I kept the last bits for my big tank so my small tanks have been water changed without any at all. In one of them I accidentally did 70% as I forgot the python draining and the tank is small, takes a few minutes to drain it.

Those two tanks contain corydoras, kuhli loaches, shrimp and ottos and they are absolutely unaffected during or after.
Today I ran out of dechlorinator altogether and my big tank just took a 60% water change without any dechlorinator.
A few months back I did several weeks water changes on one of these same tanks without dechlorinator to test as I had noticed that in the past in the rare cases when I forgot to put some, fish were ok. Those fish were and are still fine that I put through the test. I just started dosing back up so I don't worry about it, not because it made any difference.

From the limited info about our water I know it's treated with very little chlorine. I don't know anything about heavy metal content.

I know it's safer using dechlorinator because the water companies may flush the system and such but under the current circumstances buying Prime for multiple weekly water changes cost me way too much.

Might would find a way for the five tank's to produce income for you,or at least enough to afford dechlorinator.
I trade baby fishes/plant's to local fish store for store credit and this allow's me to get food's/supplies for the fishes I raise for next to nothing.
Could you do like wise or sell/trade to club/forum member's?
 
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