My System No Dechlorinator

[itiwhetu]

So this explains why you don't need a conditioner AND it also explains why you can't do any more than a 20% partial water change! Unpolluted rain water, like RO water, is too pure for most tropical fish and a large volume water change would quite possibly crash a tank.
Your posts have been deceptive by leaving out such an important detail.

Read the first post. I have only lived on this property for five years. The system is designed around town supply using Chlorine. It surprises me at the level of comprehension on this site sometimes.

 

[Essjay]

I have been using this system for water changing for over 40 years.

To most of us this means you are still using the method in the first post.

 

[itiwhetu]

To most of us this means you are still using the method in the first post.

I am sorry for the confusion. Even though I now use rain water I am still setting up tanks for people and advising them on fish keeping, this is the method that I use for those people.

I would like to point out that I am not telling anyone to do it. People make their own decisions. The idea of a site like this is to have all methods discussed and looked out, some members may get something out of this thread others will get nothing. This thread is about alternative ways. I have nothing to gain if people decide to change what they are doing.

It would be nice if some of those with a really bad water supply would look at changing it though. That is how the rain water discussion came about. And because I have experience using rain water I can comment on how that works in my situation.

 

[AbbeysDad]

Read the first post. I have only lived on this property for five years. The system is designed around town supply using Chlorine.

And your town was an exception to the chlorine/chloramine 'rule' as it applies to tap water for aquarium use. But to later point out that you 'really' use rain water appeared deceptive. How was I to know you were reminiscing about what you did years ago, but no longer because you've been using rain water for the last 5 years.

NEWBIES out there on municipal water supplies, keep using conditioner to make the water safe!

It would be nice if some of those with a really bad water supply would look at changing it though.

Changing to what exactly. Most people don't have tin roofs or live anywhere collecting rain water is realistic due to pollutants in the air. I live in the northeast US which for years has had 'acid rain'.
No most hobbyist's don't have 'really bad water', just water with chlorine or chloramine which is easily neutralized. And for those with soft or hard water, there are easy ways these days to deal with this too without moving or other drastic measures.

Okay, I fear this horse has been flogged enough. Good for you that you have untreated rain water. I trust you add minerals for your 20% water changes.

 

[itiwhetu]

And your town was an exception to the chlorine/chloramine 'rule' as it applies to tap water for aquarium use. But to later point out that you 'really' use rain water appeared deceptive. How was I to know you were reminiscing about what you did years ago, but no longer because you've been using rain water for the last 5 years.

NEWBIES out there on municipal water supplies, keep using conditioner to make the water safe!

Changing to what exactly. Most people don't have tin roofs or live anywhere collecting rain water is realistic due to pollutants in the air. I live in the northeast US which for years has had 'acid rain'.
No most hobbyist's don't have 'really bad water', just water with chlorine or chloramine which is easily neutralized. And for those with soft or hard water, there are easy ways these days to deal with this too without moving or other drastic measures.

Okay, I fear this horse has been flogged enough. Good for you that you have untreated rain water. I trust you add minerals for your 20% water changes.

No I don't use minerals as I use a natural base in all my tanks which leeches back enough minerals for healthy plant growth and the fish.
I love it when people like yourself only try to find all the negatives in a discussion and never sit back and think that is interesting there maybe something I can get out of this thread.
You have done very well at ripping apart every statement I have made.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Let’s keep it calm folks.

This is starting to get a little negative and personal.

I think I understand itiwhetu’s point and everyone else’s actually, it’s a matter of interpretation and a few mixed messages coming across perhaps.

It’s a interesting point that itiwhetu was trying to raise but came across differently for many of us, myself included, so let’s keep it friendly and civil otherwise the thread may be locked at some point if carries on negatively.

Thank you.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

please don't pretend to take offense after watching a little documentary
my mother lived about 100 miles to chernobyl before being evacuated (but still has some serious health issues) and the joke didn't offend me at all

Excuse me but when I lived on the Isle of Wight, myself and my business partner ran a coach company, it was the only one with a disabled lift equipped coach on the south coast. We worked with the charities who brought children from the region around the reactor on holidays to the various holiday camps around the UK coasts. Many of those children were from Pripyat, Yaniv and Stari Sokoly. Most had been unborn from their pregnant mothers or toddlers at the time of the explosion and suffered horrendous birth defects or injuries from the radiation.

So its not just due to one little documentary, OK @realzalio its from actually meeting those youngsters whose lives have been completely ruined as a result of what happened and the subsequent bad handling of the accident in the weeks that followed.

That is why I find a joke regarding Chernobyl offensive. That is my perogative.

 

[itiwhetu]

Excuse me but when I lived on the Isle of Wight, myself and my business partner ran a coach company, it was the only one with a disabled lift equipped coach on the south coast. We worked with the charities who brought children from the region around the reactor on holidays to the various holiday camps around the UK coasts. Many of those children were from Pripyat, Yaniv and Stari Sokoly. Most had been unborn from their pregnant mothers or toddlers at the time of the explosion and suffered horrendous birth defects or injuries from the radiation.

So its not just due to one little documentary, OK @realzalio its from actually meeting those youngsters whose lives have been completely ruined as a result of what happened and the subsequent bad handling of the accident in the weeks that followed.

That is why I find a joke regarding Chernobyl offensive. That is my perogative.

Can we just drop this for the sake of the thread, or do you guys want it locked for some other reason.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Can we just drop this for the sake of the thread, or do you guys want it locked for some other reason.

Only politely replied to to give an explanation. My perogative to do so and as long as it is polite, which it is, there is no issue.

 

[djohm23]

You may not need the scientific papers, but I do.

I can’t seem to find anything conclusive online about chlorine or chloramine disappearing so quickly without boiling water or letting it gas off over a period of time.

So therefore I can’t just take your word on this, whether you were told this by a professor or not is beside the point, you may well be right and have a point but I need to have something a bit more conclusive.

I've got five aquariums here and about 30 plants. I generally let water sit for 24 hours and still add prime before putting it in the tanks. I don't add prime for the plants but if I don't let the water sit and I give my plants chlorinated water there are definite repercussions. If you have time there is no reason to dump city well water directly into your tank.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Let me begin by pointing out that I have untreated well water, so conditioners are never needed or used...
However, I'll just add that the procedure suggested by @itiwhetu represents a significant risk to the stock.

As a youngster I remember my mother topping off her 5g metaframe aquarium with water from the tap with no conditioner. But it was a small town municipal supply that used very low levels of chlorine.

Then again some time ago the president of our fish club lost his entire fishroom after a partial water change and he had used a conditioner! Apparently there had been some water main repairs and the chlorine levels were significantly increased.

And also more and more municipalities are switching from chlorine to chloramine because unlike chlorine it does not readily dissipate and remains stable for much longer periods. So if a hobbyist has chloramine in their water, not using a conditioner would be fatal to fish.
I don't know if residents would be informed if a municipality switches from chlorine to chloramine.

"And also more and more municipalities are switching from chlorine to chloramine because unlike chlorine it does not readily dissipate and remains stable for much longer periods. So if a hobbyist has chloramine in their water, not using a conditioner would be fatal to fish."

Bingo. Enough said.

 

[Herbibore]

My rather boring technique is that I do weekly water changes in my two nano tanks (7 and 6 gallons) by using the el cheapo betta tank bought at a super store.

I had used the old cheapo betta tank (3.5 gallons) to house the betta while cycling the first tank (the second came later, as the betta was not a good community fish for amano shrimp, lol).

The el cheapo tank has nothing in it but the HOB filter and a betta fixed heater. I simply fill the tank full, add Prime and some Fritz Dark Water, let the water sit and filter until the next water change, then I have good, warm water to siphon off to do my weekly 50% water changes in the two tanks. I stagger the tanks, so every three days or so I'm changing the water in one of the tanks. 3.5 gallons works as 50% water changes for both of them this way . Pic of my two nano tanks, btw. New to forum, hello to everyone from a fairly newbie to the planted tank hobby.

 

[dasaltemelosguy]

I agree with Ch4rlie. Perhaps it's the nerd in me but I really need data as well, especially given a mistake can be a catastrophe. In many instances though all we have is anecdotal information and we must extrapolate from it with a good deal of license...and risk.

The following is somewhere between anecdotal and a full scientific analysis but it does correlate with the LA water authority's recommendations as well as his own measurements of both the chlorine and chloramine levels after 4 different removal methods, not the least of which is evaporation by Momchil:

There have been studies done on this in that in some locales, the use of chloramine mandates some form of removal or negation to be safe for fish.

Here in Los Angeles, the chloramine is about 3PPM-4PPM which would be fatal to mnay fish. Chloramine too can be negated by boiling but it is quite stable and needs a good deal of boiling to be removed sufficiently.

Evaporative and ultraviolet methods can accelerate this and while VERY effective on chlorine, it's still rather impractical for chloramine. UV can greatly accelerate this though, sometimes to it's own detriment.

(In LA, many public swimming pools are covered in part to prevent the UV from degrading the disinfecting action of the chlorine/chloramine as the UV breaks it down (although nowadays adding Cyanuric Acid to pools is commonplace to prevent UV light from breaking down chlorine in pools).

A series of tests were performed by Momchil where he found that 2PPM of Chlorine will take up to 110 hours to evaporate from 10 gallons of standing water.

Ultraviolet light, water circulation, and aeration will speed up the evaporation process dramatically though.

Boiling reduces this time from 110 hours substantially. Chlorine will dissipate 1PPM in about 4 minutes HOWEVER chloramine requires boiling for some 60 minutes for the same degree of reduction.

(Boiling is not a linear method for removal of the chlorine compounds as they dissipate logarithmically positive over time-so dissipation accelerates the longer you boil it)

On average, it takes 4X the amount of time to dissipate chloramine vs chlorine.

(the water was circa 7.5pH during the tests).

Momchil then goes on to quantify the evaporative removal of 1PPM of Chlorine and 1PPM of Chloramine from 10 gallons of water:

Undisturbed Water-Chlorine-Chloramine:
55 Hours-173 Hours

Agitated Water-Chlorine-Chloramine:
10 hours-70 hours

Agitated and Aerated Water-Chlorine-Chloramine:
9 hours-67 hours

Boiled Water-Chlorine-Chloramine:
4 minutes-65 minutes

It's not easy to find studies or scientific data on this topic but I thought Momchil's findings here were quite interesting and the chart is excellent: Free Chlorine to Degass from Tap Water

 

[Safecookie]

It is time to put up this thread. Other Threads have been talking about old School systems and implying, we didn't know what we were doing.

My system for water changing:

It relies on the tank to be Heavily planted around 50%, acid water, natural neutral base. Good filtration.
Then it is possible to safely do 25% water changes using no Dechlorinator, this works for town supply water that has Chlorine in it.
When refilling the tank you bring the garden hose in and fill the tank with the spray nozzle. The tank water will drop 3-4 degrees which is not a problem for the fish.

As the water hits the tank almost all the Chlorine is dissipated into the atmosphere the little bit remaining is absorbed by the system.

I have been using this system for water changing for over 40 years.

I have my water collet in a header tank for atleast 48hrs before the auto water change. I believe it allows the chlorine to disapate I would. Like opinions if you think not.

 

[dasaltemelosguy]

Oops. Bad link. Sorry, all fixed!