De-chlorinator. Is It Neccesary....as I Use A Different Method?

[KingOfTheSea]

even if chlormine is in the water...the filter bacteria will break down the ammonia in it leaving just the chlorine behind which will gas off.

Yeah but do you want to expose fish to chemicals at all. And do you want ammonia in the water at all? I wouldnt.

how do you know that the fish isnt happy if dechlor isnt used. i have never used it and my fish swim round enegetically, are keen eaters and have bred. i dont understand how they cant be happy

Its not about happy as i dont know if a fish could experiance happyness (although how would be know), but being healthy is more what im talking about. We know chemicals effect fish badly, i.e disease, death.

Obv it depends on the fish you keep as hardier fish like platies would take it better than more sensitive fish.

 

[Truck]

even if chlormine is in the water...the filter bacteria will break down the ammonia in it leaving just the chlorine behind which will gas off.

Yeah but do you want to expose fish to chemicals at all. And do you want ammonia in the water at all? I wouldnt.

how do you know that the fish isnt happy if dechlor isnt used. i have never used it and my fish swim round enegetically, are keen eaters and have bred. i dont understand how they cant be happy

Its not about happy as i dont know if a fish could experiance happyness (although how would be know), but being healthy is more what im talking about. We know chemicals effect fish badly, i.e disease, death.

Obv it depends on the fish you keep as hardier fish like platies would take it better than more sensitive fish.

fish are always subject to ammonia...24/7

no body really knows what chlorine does to fish...there have been studies which shows it can cause harm to the gills...but its not 100%

 

[KingOfTheSea]

But even if it "maybe" hurt them, dechlorinator isnt even expensive. Maybe I just care about the fishes health to much.

 

[Sofia]

I dont bother, the water in scotland is alot cleaner than other parts of the UK though I just think that fish are tougher than we give them credit for and there is no need for it.

 

[zuulan]

I've always used these water treatments but I've recently started to use less then the recommended amounts to make them last longer.


2 questions please.



1) After I add de-chlorinator how long should I wait for it to work before putting it into my tank? Does it work straight away?

2) How does water conditioner remove heavy metals? Chlorine I understand as it evaporates into the air, but where do these heavy metals go?

 

[KingOfTheSea]

Im suprised so many people are anti dechlor, just another way to save money? Cant be bothered? Dont believe in it?

 

[Truck]

But even if it "maybe" hurt them, dechlorinator isnt even expensive. Maybe I just care about the fishes health to much.

i care quite a lot about my fish...but im experienced enough to know that a 10% cold water change without dechlorinator isnt going to hurt my fish or filter bacteria

I've always used these water treatments but I've recently started to use less then the recommended amounts to make them last longer.


2 questions please.



1) After I add de-chlorinator how long should I wait for it to work before putting it into my tank? Does it work straight away?

2) How does water conditioner remove heavy metals? Chlorine I understand as it evaporates into the air, but where do these heavy metals go?

no body knows how long its takes...we all presume its instant..
i believe the metals are bound and form a precipitate.

Im suprised so many people are anti dechlor, just another way to save money? Cant be bothered? Dont believe in it?

yeah it does save money because in the UK its quite expensive where i am...i would use it if i thought i needed to, i can be bothered...if i can be bothered to dose ferts everyday then 1 dash of a liquid wont hurt, im skeptical i think its a money grabbing thing...but thats my opinion

 

[AdAndrews]

I must admit, since reading a bit on this forum and ukaps about so many people not using dechlor, i have been cutting back, i only use it for water changes of 30% or over now.

 

[three-fingers]

In the vast majority of cases its not needed (go read the scientific section), but barely costs anything and stops the fish being exposed to slightly heightened chlorine levels for a short period of time, IMO not using it seems extremely tight .

 

[KingOfTheSea]

Yeah, If you dont want to use it dont, but i will just to be safe. And its quicker than having buckets of water sitting around for days.

 

[Truck]

Yeah, If you dont want to use it dont, but i will just to be safe. And its quicker than having buckets of water sitting around for days.

no need to have them sitting around...just blast it into the bucket with a hose pipe...natures own dechlorinator

 

[OldMan47]

When I started in the hobby, there was no dechlorinator product being made. I did what everyone did and left my water out for a day or two before adding it to a tank. That method worked back then but we didn't have such a thing as chloramine back then either. Another common practice at the time was to never change the water in our tanks. We all knew that once a tank was set up and the fish were doing well, you just kept adding water as needed and only threw away the bit that was in the filter when you cleaned it. New fish never seemed to survive but our tanks were healthy and our fish and fry just went on in good health. Whenever someone did a big water change we were all completely certain that they would lose fish and of course they did. People would lose the entire stocking in a tank by simply doing a single water change after their fish had been perfectly happy in the tank for over a year. Now that we understand old tank syndrome, we can advise how to begin those water changes and not lose all of the fish and we have effective ways to dechlorinate our new water that work even when we chloramine in the tap water. I have used some tap water over the years in small amounts without dechlorinator and not lost fish and I used lots of water over the years that was merely allowed to gas off. With a bottle containing many years supply of dechlorinator for my 20 tanks costing less than a good meal at a restaurant, I see no reason not to use it every time and avoid any possibility of having a chlorine spike kill my fish. The industry that I work in uses ocean water to cool the process. At one time, before they figured out how to build fish return systems, fish would build to high numbers in the intake area of the plant. With a flow rate of about 200,000 gallons per minute of cooling water coming in fresh from the ocean, we would kill off all of the fish in the intake bay with a 5 gallon bottle of chlorine bleach. If you consider that it took several minutes just to pour that much bleach into the intake, we were killing all living fish by them swimming around in water that was less than 1 ppm for less than 5 minutes. I see no reason to take a chance of that kind of effect happening in my tanks no matter how many people have gotten away with adding water straight from their tap.