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What water conditioner do you use?

Fred Dulley

Member
Joined
8 Jul 2007
Messages
562
Location
Cardiff, Wales
Hey guys.
I was interested to know what water conditioners you were all using. After all it's such an important part of fishkeeping and I've not seen a topic similar to this (forgive me if I've missed it :oops: ).
Water conditioner is the one thing that I run out of the most.
Just wanted to know what you're all using and if you like a particular one?
I'm using Tetra Pond Aquasafe, 10ml treats 200litres.
 
I used to use the stuff but in the last few months I haven't bothered since I noticed no adverse effects when using it. That is not to say I don't have some knocking around "just in case".
 
I tried not using dechlor about 20 years ago (I was a teenager and had no money) and lost a few fish as a result. So now I always add dechlorinator. I have no brand alliance and use whatever is cheapest, the last purchase was 'pond doctor.'

Also, I have heard that...
Chlorine can be removed by simply aerating the water or letting it sit for a while (don't know how long a while is!) before adding it to the tank.
Chloramine has to be treated to be removed.

There is a pond dechlor thread here: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2575&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=pond+dechlor
 
Am I not right in thinking that not using a dechlorinator will lead to the chlorines/chloramines wiping out the bacteria colony within the filter and substrate therefore causing algae due to no bacteria to remove ammonia?

On the initial subject I use King British pond dechlor.

AC
 
SuperColey1 said:
Am I not right in thinking that not using a dechlorinator will lead to the chlorines/chloramines wiping out the bacteria colony within the filter and substrate therefore causing algae due to no bacteria to remove ammonia?

It'd have to be pretty high levels to wipe out the bacterial colony; they're a lot toughter than we give them credit for. Our water in Notts isn't too high in Chlorine/Chloramine and I used it once when I had no time to clean the sponges on an internal filter at school. There was absolutely no problems and no traces of nitrite in the following days so I don't worry about doing that if I have to.
 
Exactly as Ed says. I don't use conditioner, but Sussex water may not be chlorinated very much. I don't have any problems. Bacteria are pretty tough cookies and that's why you need something potent like Gluteraldehyde to clean hospital operating equipment...

Cheers,
 
Lots of info then, good stuff. Glad I brought it up.
The Seachem Prime is quite expensive though :?
I personally wouldn't want to risk losing any bacteria, so will be continuing using conditioner. Also the fact that here in Somerset about 20mins from Bristol, I can noticeably smell the damn chlorine.
 
i don't use any dechlor. I knew someone who raised discus for a living and he's been raising his fish with normal heated tap water. He does a lot of import discus too. Own quite an extensive amount of tank (somewhere along the line of 500 tanks) and claimed that never suffer any problems with that. This obviously varies from places to places. Stoke water will kill any invertebrate where you dechlor or not. so since I'm not keeping any, I decided not to dechlor. :D
 
I don't use any dechlor either, although I do let the water that I use for water changes sit overnight to let any chlorine that may be present evaporate off, it lets the water reach room temperature anyhow if nothing else. Never had any problems doing this that I am aware of, never lost any fish.

On the subject of dechloinators, I found that Seachem prime used to irritate my skin when I used to use it.
 
As per a previous poster I can smell the chlorine when I run the water into the bucket. £10 for 7 years worth (500ml used at 1.3ml per weekly 10% 12Ltr bucket) isn't much anyway which is why I use the pond stuff.

AC
 
I never used to use any, but I mostly use rainwater anyway so the amount of chlorine is minimal. I now use a tiny dash of Tetra aquasafe, but only 'cos I got it free with something!
 
Well I was using nutrafin aquaPlus, but having read some of the comments on here I think I'll be switching to pond doctor dechlor, much cheaper!
 
I use Wardley dechlor. Around here there is so much chlorine present that it will leave a stink on any container the water has been sat in. Seven Trent water though the same as Daniel, but I have no problem keeping invertebrates, you just have to be careful not to add too much in the way of traces of copper, and not use water from the hot tap, as the tap water in this part of Staffordshire has already quite high levels of copper present.

Ade
 
I'm going to be using pond doctor,but was using tetra aqua safe on my last tank, which works out loads dearer than pond doctor :twisted:
 
request a water report from your supplier, that will tell you how much/if your water has chloramine or chlorine in it.. then you can make your choices from there.. its likely that inner city areas will probably have more in it due to water recycling, rural areas less so.
 
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