Seachem Safe dosage calucations

[EnderUK]

Okay trying to work out the contricting instructions on Safe.

10g-50g
Chlorine: use 1 measure to each 130 L (35 gallons*) of tap water (removes 1 ppm)..

Directions for 250 g and larger
Chlorine: use 5 g (1 tsp.*) to each 1625 L (450 gallons*) of tap water (removes 4 ppm).

Okay first question so why do I need to tak out 4ppm on a larger tank?

Well I have smaller tanks so say I use 1/2 a mesaure (50mg) for a 50% WC on my 125 tank this will take out 1ppm. However my water has 26.3mg Cl/l of Chloride, traces of Chlorothalonil, Chlorpropham, Chlorpyrifos, Chlortoluron and Tetrachloromethane. Does this mean I need to use roughly 650mg per w/c?

Thanks

 

[EnderUK]

Okay chloride isn't the same as free chlorine, how do I find out how much chlorine is in my water and how much chloramine there is.

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[dw1305]

Hi all,
You can use the lower rate.

Okay chloride isn't the same as free chlorine, how do I find out how much chlorine is in my water and how much chloramine there is.

You can ignore the chloride, it is as the ion Cl-, and not toxic. The chlorine gas (Cl2) content of the tap water will be below 1ppm, mainly because you can taste it above this level. As an example a swimming pool would have ~5ppm Cl2.

traces of Chlorothalonil, Chlorpropham, Chlorpyrifos, Chlortoluron and Tetrachloromethane.

You can ignore them as well, they are pesticide traces and we are talking about ppb or lower levels.

In a planted tank you can ignore chloramine as well, unless you do really large volume water changes. Chloramine is a more persistent disinfectant than chlorine gas, which means it only slowly decomposes to Cl2 and ammonia. In a planted tank the plants will mop-up the ammonia as it is created.

cheers Darrel

 

[EnderUK]

Great thanks the tub should last years then if im using 50mg a wc.

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[sciencefiction]

Well, you'd need a pretty well jungle style tank not to harm anything. Plus chloramine is toxic to plants too as far as I know. And then how about the fish, the bacteria that gets immediate contact with the chloramine. I can't imagine its broken down immediately with contact with plants/tank water. You'd be killing some slowly or eat each water change. It goes into the bloodstream of the fish.
Plants also rely on the interaction of different types of bacteria too in the substrate to grow well so systematic chloramine can't be beneficial at all one way or another even if you don't kill the plants. You may not kill anything outright in a planted tank from an accidental chloramine dose, but surely doing it time and time again will not be good.