Dechlorination

[strobe1980]

I'm in the same opinion that larger schoals of smaller fish are a lot more impressive. Once you are up and running you should post some pics,it sounds awesome.
Thanks for the advice Mikey.
I have just received my Kh test kit (API) and my tank water Is 5dkh well it took 5drops to turn from blue to yellow, is this good??

 

[eaglesaquarium]

There's no such thing as a "bad" kH value, certain fish just prefer different conditions. If you have really low kH, you can have discus, tetras, corydoras, etc. If you have a high kH value, going with African cichlids. Its just a matter of knowing your water and trying to find fish that match, as best as possible.


In general though, soft water fish can handle harder water, than vice-versa. Although, there are certainly plenty of exceptions for that, including discus.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I hope I can do this without raising anyones hackles.

Lets start with the fact that this thread turned the OP's Q ijto two. One is can you over dose dechlor during cycling, and the answer to that is yes. On this I would quote Dr. Hovanec, one of the world's leading researcher's on the subject of nitrifying bacreria in aquariums,

Lastly, do not add ammonia-removing products as this just complicates the process – let nature take its course and your tank will be ready for fish.

from http/www.drtimsaqu...ng/how-to-start

Finally, in regards to bio-media there are basically teo features which determine hoow good any media might be for hosting the bacteria. One is surface area and the other, for lack of a better term, is clogability. By this I mean how easily the media will clog and thus impede flow through. The bacteria need "food", oxygen and carbnate. These are delivered via the water. When media clogs, it blocks the delivery system and the bacteria will first go dormant and then eventually die if things remain clogged.

Fortunately, the bacteria do not live only in the filter, they love almost any hard surface, but especially sybstrate. So even if one unintentionally starts to clog up ones bio-media, more the colonies elsewhere should eventually pick up the slack.

Do not add ammonia removers to bind the ammonia- overdosing with these products will just increase the cycling time.
from http/www.drtimsaqu...ishless-cycling

Until I see another microbiologist who has done the level of research he has into tank bacteria, I will trust what he says.

Now as for dosing dechlor into established tanks, if it is not possible to overdose dechlor, then I would ask how many of you would be willing to pour a cup of Pirme/Amquel/AquaSafe/Stresszyme etc. into a 10 gal tank? It is one thing to say dosing two or three times the recommended dose wont do harm and another to say it is not possible to dose too much.

Finally, yes you can underdose dechlor during cycling. For bacteria to become firmly established they end up living in a biofilm along with a number of other bacteria, This biofilm provides a defence against chlorine and chloramine ( other things). However, during the initial stages of cycling this biofilm has not yet formed and the bacteria are much more susceptible to these substances. At this point underdosing dechlor would reult in bacterial death which would slow the cycle if not stop it dead in its tracks,

 

[daizeUK]

I'm confused. The two articles linked don't mention dechlorinators at all. What have ammonia-removers got to do with overdosing dechlorinator? I understand that Prime is a dechlorinator that also removes some ammonia, but there are plenty of dechlorinators out there that just remove chlorine and some also remove chloramine (incidentally creating ammonia in the process). So I'm not sure where the linked articles make it clear that overdosing dechlorinator is bad (although I have seen it said elsewhere, so I don't doubt it's true, I just don't see it here).

 

[strobe1980]

OK thank you for the advice,although adding ammo remover wasn't even the question, I can see the link there.
Ill read the links you have posted.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Daize, what you say would make sense if one could actually find dechlorinators that only handle chlorine and not chloramine. Once they break down chloramine, if they do not contain an ammonia detoxifier, then they create ammonia. One can find ammonia detoxifiers that do not also remove chlorine or chloramine, the reverse is much more difficult. One of the few is NutraFin's Aqua Plus. Perhaps is is easier to find dechlor that doesn't detox ammonia in the UK?

In 2009 the EPA published information indicating that more than 1 in 5 Americans used drinking water treated with monochlormine. So under the heading of better safe than sorry, most dechlorination products for the aquarium hobby now contain the ammonia (an sometimes nitrite) detoxifiers. I was unable to find stats for UK treatment plants, but my impression is its use there is similarly common.

Unless one directly querries their water company, how would one know whether their tap water has been treated with only chlorine or both chlorine and chloramine?

While you say there are plenty of dechorinators out there that only do chlorine, are you aware of what heppens when one uses those products on chloramine treated water? What heppens to the begiining fish keep whose dechlor product doesn't contain an ammonia detoxifier as well?

Dechlors that also detox ammonia:

SeaChem Prime
Kordon Amquel and Amquel Plus
Carib Sea D-Clor-It max
API AmmoLock

I could detrmine from their site if Tetra's product also detoxified ammonia.

 

[daizeUK]

I'm using Interpet Bioactive Tapsafe (a small sample bottle came free with the tank, just using it up). It claims to remove chlorine, chloramine (which yes I do have in my water supply), toxic metals & copper, adds aloe vera and 'beneficial bacteria'.

It doesn't claim to treat ammonia at all. Most of the information I've found on dechlorinators seem to assume that small amounts of ammonia will be dealt with by a biofilter in the tank, I didn't realise that it was so common to include an ammonia remover.

So are you saying that the sole reason not to overdose on dechlorinator is due to the ammonia removal aspect? This is important to me as I need to know if I can overdose my tank (I've run out of other ideas to get my cycle started, already exceeded recommended dose of Tapsafe and still not convinced my chlorine test is reading zero).

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Chlorine will gas off after about 24 hours with a well aerated tub, so I think its safe to say that your chlorine is gone. ;-)

 

[daizeUK]

Yes I understand but the chloramine takes longer to decay into ammonia, I don't know how long but this is why I am starting to suspect it may be responsible for stalling my cycle for the past month.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I always dosed my dechlorinator at 1.5X the suggested dosage during a cycle.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

yes- the biggest problem with dosing most dechlors is the ammonia binding properties provided in addition to the chlorine detoxifying ones. So when you overdose the chlorine remover, you are also ovrdosing the ammonia neutralizer.

I have read that bit about the amount of ammonia resulting from chloramine breakdown being handled by the biofilter. What I wonder is if this is the case no matter how much water one chnage. Sometime there can be issues with a tank that require one to change a large portion of the water. So if you have to do a 50-80% water change, will the resulting ammonia from chloramine breakdown still be handled by a biofilter in time for it to prevent harm to the fish?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I have read that bit about the amount of ammonia resulting from chloramine breakdown being handled by the biofilter. What I wonder is if this is the case no matter how much water one chnage. Sometime there can be issues with a tank that require one to change a large portion of the water. So if you have to do a 50-80% water change, will the resulting ammonia from chloramine breakdown still be handled by a biofilter in time for it to prevent harm to the fish?

Considering that the filters are usually off during that time, the answer is more than likely "no". Which is why I use Prime, so that it detoxifies the ammonia produced by the tap water. By the time the dechlorinator (ammonia detoxifying agent) wears off, my biofilter has had a chance to catch up, and all is well.

 

[daizeUK]

The water quality report for my area, mean values:
Residual Disinfectant - Free : 0.351 mg/L
Residual Disinfectant - Total : 0.432 mg/L
Ammonia/Ammonium - 0.005 mg/L

The free disinfectant is chlorine and I assume that total is chloramine + chlorine. So chloramine content is 0.432-0.351 = 0.081mg/L of chloramine.
A chloramine molecule is three time heavier than an ammonia molecule, so the resulting ammonia is 0.081/3 = 0.027 mg/L of ammonia.
Add this to the 0.005 free ammonia (probably resulting from natural breakdown of unstable chloramine molecules) and total ammonia after dechlorination is 0.032 mg/L.

So unless I'm missing something, 0.032 mg/L of ammonia/ammonium is barely enough to show up on a test kit. (And yet, my ammonia test does have a faint green tinge on tapwater...)
That amount should surely cause no problems to fish or biofilter.

 

[raptorrex]

Hi. Would it be possible that underdosing dechlor would slow a fishes cycle down,and also can you overdose dechlor?
Sorry if these are generic questions.
Rich

During the cycle using a, "de-chlorinating conditioner" yes, very possibly.
But if you use a de-chlorinator only (with no added "conditioners") it’s no again.
.

 

[strobe1980]

Thanks raptor.