Dechlorinat, With Out Declorinator?

[sawickib]

Is there a way to declorinate tap water with out the declorinator? Im getting city water soon, and my elephant nose fish are sensitive to chlorine and declorinator, i have well water right now so ive never had to use stuff like prime. Anyway to do it?

 

[noobgamers]

distilling

 

[Squeegeatc]

a LONG time ago, my father just filled several milk jugs and left them loosely capped for a week.  He does the same for his outdoor fish pond in an old water tank   It just off gases.  
 
HOWEVER, I am a serious newbie, and I imagine the more delicate fish might still have some issues. 

 

[DrRob]

Depends on the city water. If it's just chlorine it can be gassed off over time. A lot of plants nowadays use chloramines though, that are far more stable than the chlorine so gassing off won't work.
 
Various filtering systems can remove chlorine, although you have to watch them for running out on you.

 

[Ryan10]

I have heard of aerating the water with an air stone. I've never tried it personally.

 

[coolie]

There are some basic dechlorinators like the one from 3chem, that don't include unnecessary chemicals, and are more affordable than high tech stuff with all the add ons.

 

[Squeegeatc]

Depends on the city water. If it's just chlorine it can be gassed off over time. A lot of plants nowadays use chloramines though, that are far more stable than the chlorine so gassing off won't work.
 
Various filtering systems can remove chlorine, although you have to watch them for running out on you.

 I wondered about that.  Dad had a tank 25+ years ago.   Things were a LOT different back then!

 

[DrRob]

I had a tank nearly that long ago, and chlorine did indeed gas off from the water overnight. We used to keep a jug of water in the fridge as it tasted far better once the chlorine had cleared. It stopped working about 18 years ago.

 

[sawickib]

So living the water to sit overnight wont work?

 

[coolie]

No - not anymore. At the water company they add the chlorine as usual and then in a second process they add ammonia which rapidly reacts with the chlorine to form chloramine which is much more stable and takes about 30 days to completely break down. The ammonia is added in such a way that it will always leave a residual amount of chlorine unreacted; this means you wont find free ammonia in the water, but you may find free chlorine. In fact you will usually find an amount of chloramine and a smaller amount of chlorine. 

 

[KirkyArcher]

Ask your water provider or search it's web page and find out what's used in the water supply, "Chlorine only" is still used in many processing stations, lots of people I know don't treat their water at all, even though chlorine and chloramines exist in their supply tap water, one lad does a 50% water change each week in his cichlid tank with raw tap water and all contents are thriving and show no signs of distress or ailments!