Water conditioner for small tanks

[GaryE]

It will depend on just how much chlorine is in the water on water change day. If it varies, a set dose won't be good enough as you could end up adding insufficient on high chlorine days or too much on low chlorine days. Do you have any data on the maximum and minimum levels?


The dose rate on Seachem's website is 5 ml for 50 gallons/200 litres (though 50 gallons = 189 litres so they've rounded it up). That's 1 ml in 10 gallons/40 litres. You would need to experiment to see how many drops from your dropper = 1 ml, then work out how many drops for the volume you would be using.

Thank you. I tend to be a bit cavalier about dosages, as chlorine management hasn't been an issue for me. The format of the Seachem bottles makes them wasteful, and that's my biggest concern. Even if I reduce chlorine levels rather than knock them out completely I'm happy, as this is my first dechlorination other than by vigourous splashing water flow in for a long time. I'll get as close as I can with this excellent and welcome advice.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Interesting thread. The one drop per gallon dechlorinator I used for ages was discontinued 20 years ago, and I simply stopped dechlorinating for any water change below 30%. I was dealing was simple chlorine, and not chloramines. I bred 200 species of fish in that time, and all my fish were very long lived, so it was not a problem.

It worked just fine, but after I moved this city seems to go chlorine happy on an irregular basis. For those days (once or twice a month) when a swimming pool comes out of my tap, I decided to listen to people here and buy myself my first ever, 55 years into the hobby Prime bottle. My plan was to use it for one species that would not lay eggs fpr 4 or 5 days after water changes, in case that was the chlorine that didn't gas off, and to treat all tanks on the bad days.

It is a pain in the water butt to portion out given that I have small (10 and 20 gallon mainly) tanks. I can't seem to get the API product here, without an international order, and am stuck with the Seachem product. If I were to go over to using a dropper, what would you suggest for dosages, in US gallons, so I can waste less and put less of this into my water?

Just get yourself a medicinal syringe, they are marked in increments of ml...your pharmacy may give you some for free, or you can get them cheaply at the dollar stores

I dump some of my Prime into a small glass jar with a lid; makes it easy to draw the Prime into the syringe, instead of trying to draw the Prime out of the bottle it comes in...

For your 10G, I ml of Prime...for your 20G, 2 ml of Prime

 

[Oblio]

Just get yourself a medicinal syringe, they are marked in increments of ml...your pharmacy may give you some for free, or you can get them cheaply at the dollar stores

I dump some of my Prime into a small glass jar with a lid; makes it easy to draw the Prime into the syringe, instead of trying to draw the Prime out of the bottle it comes in...

For your 10G, I ml of Prime...for your 20G, 2 ml of Prime

You can also get blunt 'needles', I use them for both conditioner and dispensing fountain pen ink.

 

[Slaphppy7]

You can also get blunt 'needles', I use them for both conditioner and dispensing fountain pen ink.

Wow....real fountain pens?

 

[Essjay]

For your 10G, I ml of Prime...for your 20G, 2 ml of Prime

That's the amount of Prime for the whole tank volume or if refilling with a hose when you add enough for the whole tank volume. If you refill with buckets, you only need the dose for the volume of the bucket, and if it's more than one bucketful, add the amount for the volume of the bucket to each bucket of water.


I got carried away thinking about drops As SlapHppy said, 1 ml syringes mean you can dose fractions of a ml quite easily.

 

[Oblio]

Wow....real fountain pens?

Yes, currently using Noodler's Ahab demonstrator, flex nib. Noodler's Heart of Darkness black ink.

 

[GaryE]

Now I used to love fountain pens.

Now that my arithmetic challenged brain has a dosage to work with, I have a bag of syringes with saline in them - leftovers from a bag I got for a plant fert friend years ago. I'll clean some out and put them to good use. Up to now, filled with hydrogen peroxide, they have been my hydra shooting weapons.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Yes, currently using Noodler's Ahab demonstrator, flex nib. Noodler's Heart of Darkness black ink.

Internet search begun...

 

[Oblio]

Internet search begun...

Rabbit hole (and cult) warning

 

[GaryE]

Searching for syringes online could get you a job in a seventies revival band.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Rabbit hole (and cult) warning

JetPens.com - Noodler's Ahab Flex Fountain Pen - Clear Demonstrator

Inspired by Herman Melville's classic novel Moby-Dick, the Ahab is Noodler's large-size flex fountain pen. It features a flexible steel nib, a handmade ebonite feed, and a piston filling system that can be removed, letting you fill the entire barrel with ink. Noodler's flex pens are ideal for...

www.jetpens.com

Everyday use, or are you into calligraphy?

 

[Back in the fold]

Why not age your water under aeration in a large container and always have water ready ? Problem solved.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Why not age your water under aeration in a large container and always have water ready ? Problem solved.

That method works with chlorine, but not with chloramine...

 

[GaryE]

Why not age your water under aeration in a large container and always have water ready ? Problem solved.

That's a good solution that works if you have enough space, and the tank is at room temperature. You also have to either cart heavy buckets or set up a pumping system. A lot of us fill by hose and mix the water to the right temperature.

@Wills , the original poster, didn't say if chloramines were the issue, and for some reason a bunch of us assumed it wasn't. That's a good splash (slap) of water in the face there, @Slaphppy7 !

 

[Byron]

Concerning the "size" of each drop...they are the same for that liquid. The liquid falls at a volume according to gravity's effect on the liquid, not the dropper opening size. So each "drop" of liquid "x" will be roughly the same, unless you change the force of gravity. Not very likely.