"Stress Coat" versus Water Condition

[jazzx101]

I've been looking around, and have noticed a bunch of things basically labeled stress coat that you can put in the water for your fish. I'm sure you all know what I am talking about. My question is, is this really any better than just a plain water conditioner? I have a small bottle that just gets the chlorine out, which I always use just to be on the safe side.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[fish_r_great]

Here
http/www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...=1&N=2004&Nty=1

 

[Auratus]

I think it is best to get a bottle of both.

Stress coat is also a dechlorinator but you have to use about 3 times as much as regular conditioner. Stress coat is expenisve so I would recommend only using it for a slime coat protector

Stress coat is better for stressed fish (hence the name) and puts back their slime coat when they are moved around or beaten up. If you buy some you will see how slimy it looks when it is in the water and sinks to the bottom. My fish always try to eat it.

So, I recommend a bottle of Jungle Start Right. It has a picture of a dwarf gourami on it. And then a bottle of stress coat by aquarium pharmicuticals. I found those to be the best brands (and the cheapest).

 

[yhbae]

My understanding is that stress coat's (and any other "slimy" products) don't really help removing stress for fishes. I use stress coat since it removes chlorine, chloramine and some toxic metals. It was also one of the cheapest of all conditioners that provided the same functions. Every major manufacturer sells pretty much the same thing.

I'd buy whatever is the cheapest since at the end of the day, most conditioners do about the same. Around my area, stress coat was the cheapest.

I did look into ChloroOut a while back, but decided against using it as it removes only chlorine. If you know that your water doesn't have chloramine, this is probably the cheapest way to go, and is still safe.

 

[thecichlidaddict]

Most of these products are just bogus consumables to help these companies make more money. Fish don't really need them.

All a fish needs to keep perfectly health is an unstressful environment, and clean, fresh water. I only buy dechlorinators made to do just that - neutrilize the water. If it boasts all sorts of other fish-saving miricals I don't touch it. Aquariums are a small, closed system as it is, why add more garbage to the water then necessary?

 

[Alien_spawn]

Most of these products are just bogus consumables to help these companies make more money. Fish don't really need them.

All a fish needs to keep perfectly health is an unstressful environment, and clean, fresh water. I only buy dechlorinators made to do just that - neutrilize the water. If it boasts all sorts of other fish-saving miricals I don't touch it. Aquariums are a small, closed system as it is, why add more garbage to the water then necessary?

I could'nt agree with you more on this issue, there's a lot of companies trying to get peoples money out there.

Normally only use dechlorinators myself, but recently I had a pump disaster lost over 50% of the water in the tank. So on this occassion I legged it down to the LFS and bought some Nutrafin Cycle ( was worried that I had lost the bio cycle in the tank)

By using this I think proberley saved them. Cannot be 100% though. But it made me feel better

 

[CFC]

I use AP stresscoat as a dechlorinater as it works out the best value for money since 1 teaspoon treats 10 gallons of water, which makes a big difference when you are doing small water changes everyday and run mulitple systems and large tanks.

 

[MAM]

i actually use stress zyme as my water conditioner and use stress coat for its "protective slime coating" properties. don't know if it really helps, but it hasn't hurt. so i'm using the old "it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy when it comes to my chemical usage.

 

[guppymonkey]

I use stresscoat. I am not sure if it really works that much better than a regular dechlorinator. A lot of the dechlorinators that I have seen don't take out the chloramines or say that you have to buy another product to take them out. So I just use stress coat, if it helps reduce stress AND gets rid of chlorine and chloramines then it seems to be better than the other products I have seen.

 

[thecichlidaddict]

if it helps reduce stress

No, that is not the way it works. the only thing that can reduce stress is you. You reduce stress by treating the fish as best you can. This means housing the fish in an appropriate sized aquarium, keeping it with approrpriate tankmates, feeding it an appropriate diet, and keeping the aquarium clean - meaning doing proper and regular water changes, substrate cleaning, and filter maintenance.

Stress coat simply adds 'stuff' to the water to 'help' the fish deal with stress that they shouldn't really have in the first place. It doesn't really doanything that clean water and a proper diet won't accomplish.

 

[goldene]

Tetra aquasafe is a dechlorinator and also puts a protective coating, Iv been using this for almost 4 years and found it ok.

 

[Mollymomma]

I use the tetra aquasafe too goldene. It has been the cheapest and have not had any problems with it. But I have noticed that the same size bottle at the LFS costs more than it does at walmart.

I buy very little chemicals for my tanks, I try to keep the enviorment as pure as possible with water changes & general upkeep. I have 1 med for ick and 1 med for finrot in the draw of my stand..I have not used either for quite a long time.