Water Conditioner Question

[JSmails]

When adding water conditioner with a water change it says to add 5ml per every 20 litres. Is this ml per every new 20 litres or should you put in enough to cover the whole quantity of the tank itself. So if I have a 100 litre tank and do a 20% water change should I add 25ml or 5ml?

And If you added too much is it harmful?

 

[Torrean]

If you add the dechlorinator to the water before you put it in your tank you only need to dechlorinate that water so only add the amount needed to treat the new water.

Some say that if you add the water to the tank before treating it with dechlorinator then you should treat the entire volume of water. I disagree but have no proof...

 

[moeldner]

I would say that as the water treatment is to treat chemicals in the new water, you should only need enough to treat the new water added- in your example, 5ml.

As for the harmfulness - from what I've read, it is generally not going to harm anything unless you use massive overdoses.

 

[y2blade]

i just treat the fresh water BEFORE putting it in the tank ..has been fine so far

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

I agree with treating the water BEFORE you add to the tank. Otherwise until the solution has reacted and removed the chlorine etc the fish are stressed with the chemicals present.
Also dosage is important as there is just enough treatment to deal with the amount of additives it has to remove from your tap water. If you add to the tank first, unless you add enough to cater for the whole tank capacity the treatment will be so diluted that it will not remove all of the harmful stuff from your tap water.

 

[andywg]

I agree with treating the water BEFORE you add to the tank. Otherwise until the solution has reacted and removed the chlorine etc the fish are stressed with the chemicals present.
Also dosage is important as there is just enough treatment to deal with the amount of additives it has to remove from your tap water. If you add to the tank first, unless you add enough to cater for the whole tank capacity the treatment will be so diluted that it will not remove all of the harmful stuff from your tap water.

You obviously don't have a large tank as that is what almost every person with large tanks does. Dump the dechlor in, and then fill up from a hose connected to the tap.

Ignoring the unfinished scientific debate on whether water conditioners are actually necessary on mature tanks (those older than 6 months) de-chlor works in an almost instant fashion. Because it is dilluted across the whole tank will not matter.

The chlorine in the water does not greatly affect the fish. The problem is its effect on the filter bacteria colony, causing a potential spike and cycle (though these do not seem to occur on the more mature tanks mentioned above).

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

I agree with treating the water BEFORE you add to the tank. Otherwise until the solution has reacted and removed the chlorine etc the fish are stressed with the chemicals present.
Also dosage is important as there is just enough treatment to deal with the amount of additives it has to remove from your tap water. If you add to the tank first, unless you add enough to cater for the whole tank capacity the treatment will be so diluted that it will not remove all of the harmful stuff from your tap water.

You obviously don't have a large tank as that is what almost every person with large tanks does. Dump the dechlor in, and then fill up from a hose connected to the tap.

Ignoring the unfinished scientific debate on whether water conditioners are actually necessary on mature tanks (those older than 6 months) de-chlor works in an almost instant fashion. Because it is dilluted across the whole tank will not matter.

The chlorine in the water does not greatly affect the fish. The problem is its effect on the filter bacteria colony, causing a potential spike and cycle (though these do not seem to occur on the more mature tanks mentioned above).

My tank is 450 litres or 100 Uk gallons . I dont know if that is classed as big or not in your opinion. All I know is that chlorine DOES affect fish, and yes it does kill filter bacteria. So ammonia and nitrite spikes are not too clever for fish health either. I do 50% water changes per week and look after my fishes health, which you obviously dont seem to have at heart to make your own life easier 'dumping' untreated water into the tank. Quite stressful for the fish I imagine!

 

[andywg]

My tank is 450 litres or 100 Uk gallons . I dont know if that is classed as big or not in your opinion. All I know is that chlorine DOES affect fish, and yes it does kill filter bacteria. So ammonia and nitrite spikes are not too clever for fish health either. I do 50% water changes per week and look after my fishes health, which you obviously dont seem to have at heart to make your own life easier 'dumping' untreated water into the tank. Quite stressful for the fish I imagine!

I would class that as a fairly big tank. Certainly too large to mess about putting water in buckets and then into the tank.

Maybe you should look around the board before sweeping comments like "chlorine DOES affect fish". If the chlorine is so bad, how do people with sensitive fish such as 'rays get away with just piping the water in, or some of our angel breeders putting it in their fry tanks? If fish that sensitive can hack it, I doubt most fish have any trouble with water being piped straight in.

If you do some digging around the web you will find a couple of experiments people did. With a chlorine level of 4-5 ppm from the tank, a 30% change was found to leave you with around 0.25ppm. Within 5 minutes it was 0ppm. The same was found whether their was chlorine or chloramine in the water. So long as the tank was 6 months old, it could cope with 40% water changes or so within 5 minutes. That was with absolutely no de-chlorinator. months later, no deaths and the only thing they had noticed was brighter colours.

If it really is so bad for the fish, why do all mine swim around the new water being piped in? If it SO stressful, surely they would hide away from it? Back when I tested the water regularly I noticed not a single ammonia or nitrite spike from this, despite doing a 40% water change twice per week at the time.

For me it is about getting the new water in the tank as quick as possible so that I can get the water running through the trickle tower and sump thus filtering the water quicker. To hell with putting 60 gallons in the tank by bucket.

Why do you think Pythons are so popular? Because you can just pipe the water into the tank. These topics end up with people who use buckets saying that piping water in is really bad, against those that actually doing it saying there is no problem at all.

I really think some people don't give fish credit for surviving some of the worst evolutionary wipe outs there have been and think that if something non-sterilised enters the tank they will all die of shock.

 

[Tolak]

I agree with treating the water BEFORE you add to the tank. Otherwise until the solution has reacted and removed the chlorine etc the fish are stressed with the chemicals present.
Also dosage is important as there is just enough treatment to deal with the amount of additives it has to remove from your tap water. If you add to the tank first, unless you add enough to cater for the whole tank capacity the treatment will be so diluted that it will not remove all of the harmful stuff from your tap water.

You obviously don't have a large tank as that is what almost every person with large tanks does. Dump the dechlor in, and then fill up from a hose connected to the tap.

Ignoring the unfinished scientific debate on whether water conditioners are actually necessary on mature tanks (those older than 6 months) de-chlor works in an almost instant fashion. Because it is dilluted across the whole tank will not matter.

The chlorine in the water does not greatly affect the fish. The problem is its effect on the filter bacteria colony, causing a potential spike and cycle (though these do not seem to occur on the more mature tanks mentioned above).

My tank is 450 litres or 100 Uk gallons . I dont know if that is classed as big or not in your opinion. All I know is that chlorine DOES affect fish, and yes it does kill filter bacteria. So ammonia and nitrite spikes are not too clever for fish health either. I do 50% water changes per week and look after my fishes health, which you obviously dont seem to have at heart to make your own life easier 'dumping' untreated water into the tank. Quite stressful for the fish I imagine!

I'm one of those heartless people who dump untreated water into their tanks. I'm running around 500 U.S. gallons between 16 tanks. I dump chlorinated water in with a hose on 3-week-old angels, often a couple degrees warmer or cooler, at the rate of 50% twice weekly. I did this once with a tank with 70 or so 4-week-old angels without adding dechlor, and waited 2 hours for something to happen. I added dechlor out of boredom. Nothing adverse happened. I go through around 300 gallons of fresh water weekly, doing this with buckets is crazy. Hosing it in and adding dechlor before, during, or after seemingly makes no difference. Opinions are only that, opinions. Unless you have had some sort of bad experience dealing with changing water with hoses and adding dechlor afterwards you probably shouldn't pass judgment on those that do. If you have had problems with it, I for one would like to hear some details about it. You may get help with it here, and we may learn something. You also have to understand that andy & I have been posting about this theory for a while, and I have been planning on setting aside a tank with some angel culls for the purpose of seeing if the theory works.

As for the original poster, dechlor works almost instantly, and people go back & forth as whether to dechlor the replacement volume or the whole tank volume. I treat the replacement volume, but often add double depending on the recent weather conditions, which affects my water supply. Adding extra doesn't harm the fish, some dechlorinators can, and in certain situations are recommended, to be used at 5 times the normal dose.

 

[yvez9]

I agree with Tolak

I use a Python because changing water in my 90 gallon tank would require 5 to 6 buckets of water. Not counting my 4 other tanks. I like my back healthy and carrying buckets of water all around wouldn't be too kind now. I guess i'm a heartless fishkeeper too.

In rivers, fish swim around in waters polluted by boat engines and people throwing garbage in their habitat. I doubt being in contact with a very small chlorine concentration for a few minutes will harm them. As for the filter bacteria, a mature tank can handle losing probably around 50% of the active bacteria and still handle the bio-load and restore itself within a few hours.

I just remove water, add dechlor to the tank and fill it up slowly with tap water. I make sure the water temp is close enough (anywhere within 10 degrees cooler) I've never killed a fish with this. I've never had ammonia spike or fish floating or getting sick due to a water change.

 

[moeldner]

A colleague at work never uses water conditioner (and hasn't for years). He's been relatively trouble free until recently when he lost almost all his fish because he decided to strip the filter down and clean it thouroughly, destroying his bacteria in the process (he did it because he was going away for several weeks and wanted to make sure it wouldn't clog while he had someone over feeding his fish).

Saying that, I still use conditoiner as I feel it is better to be safe then sorry, but I add it to my tank as I;'m filling from a python like syphon.

On the topic of chlorine dispersing into the air quickly, we have to keep a cover on our swimming pool to keep any chlorine in it at all. Leaving the cover off will result in our chlorine levels down to 0.2% (from between 1-5%) in a very short period of time - this is in far higher concentrations than you will find in tap water generally.

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

Well some people are just arrogant when making sweeping statements like 'you must have a small tank if you dont just dump your water in with a python'
And to say that it does not harm fish in any way - well you should just do your own research on the web. This is just one on thousands of articles I found on the web relating to how chlorine attacks the gills on fish and does harm/kill them:

Chlorine attack on fish

Read 3rd paragraph, last sentence.
just because your fish dont die when you use untreated water, does not mean that they are not harmed in any way. If you are cut you bleed and are harmed, but you dont die.
Your fish swim in the new water as its highly oxygenated, not beacuse they love the chlorine !!

Dont judge others that take the time to treat the water first and make the effort to bucket it in, just because your used to your 'dump' method.
Each to their own I say, so dont be so agressive as 'well you must have a small tank then'!

 

[emmzer]

Well some people are just arrogant when making sweeping statements like 'you must have a small tank if you dont just dump your water in with a python'
And to say that it does not harm fish in any way - well you should just do your own research on the web. This is just one on thousands of articles I found on the web relating to how chlorine attacks the gills on fish and does harm/kill them:

Chlorine attack on fish

Read 3rd paragraph, last sentence.
just because your fish dont die when you use untreated water, does not mean that they are not harmed in any way. If you are cut you bleed and are harmed, but you dont die.
Your fish swim in the new water as its highly oxygenated, not beacuse they love the chlorine !!

Dont judge others that take the time to treat the water first and make the effort to bucket it in, just because your used to your 'dump' method.
Each to their own I say, so dont be so agressive as 'well you must have a small tank then'!

hi all 1st of all such passion on this board... i have a small tank and yes i bucket it in... i even have 4 buckets with declorine stuff in left over night..just to make sure... so in theoy according to u guys i can just do this..

TAP...BUCKET...DECLORINISER.....TANK as opposed to...
TAP...BUCKET...DECLORINISER...OVERNIGHT LEAVE OUT....TANK?
cheers ppl

 

[JSmails]

Well there, we are I didnt quite expect to start off such an argument with such a question. But thanks all for your answers and I have learnt a lot. Ive only been keeping tropical fish for a short space of time and I really wish I could go back to the start cos there are so many mistakes I wouldnt make again, Anyway my point is that every shop I go in I get different advice....often conflicting...... so i just think you all need to realise youre all on the same side and although you might not agree it doesnt mean u need to tale it so personally. All the different opinions and ideas are great and I really appreciate it, but there is no need to start on each other. This aint a war dudes

 

[andywg]

Well some people are just arrogant when making sweeping statements like 'you must have a small tank if you dont just dump your water in with a python'
And to say that it does not harm fish in any way - well you should just do your own research on the web. This is just one on thousands of articles I found on the web relating to how chlorine attacks the gills on fish and does harm/kill them:

Chlorine attack on fish

Read 3rd paragraph, last sentence.
just because your fish dont die when you use untreated water, does not mean that they are not harmed in any way. If you are cut you bleed and are harmed, but you dont die.
Your fish swim in the new water as its highly oxygenated, not beacuse they love the chlorine !!

Dont judge others that take the time to treat the water first and make the effort to bucket it in, just because your used to your 'dump' method.
Each to their own I say, so dont be so agressive as 'well you must have a small tank then'!

That link mentions nothing on the effects of tap level amounts of chlorine on fish. It states a short term exposure at 1,000ppm can be fatal to humans. What level is damaging to fish? What reports are there of chlorine at tap levels killing fish? The reason chloramine is used is because chlorine gases off so quickly (even under pressurised pipes) that after a few miles of pipes it cannot kill off bacteria, let alone fish.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with putting 4-5ppm which instantly gases off to 0.25 ppm in the tank.

Indeed, the point about de-chlorinators being necessary is even more thrown wide open by this research by bignose: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...1413&st=16#

In which it seems chlormaines actually FEED the filter bacteria, thereby INCREASING the amount of food available to the filter colony. To put in laymen terms, putting un treated chloraminated water into an aquarium could actually benefit the filtration bacterial colony. Though this digresses slightly from a pure chlorine debate as above.

Bottom line is fillet, people do what they feel is best. I myself do not see the necessity to de-chlor the water for two reasons: the concentration of chlroine in tap water is too low to do major damage, and the chlorine is too easily gassed off to cause any problems. My problem was you saying that to put de-chlor in the tank first would be some sort of catastrophe when it is a perfectly safe thing to do that a number of people have been doing for years. Too many people state things that are plain wrong on this forum as fact.

Have you read any sources about the actual levels of chlorine in tap water compared to just after a water change compared to that which causes long or short term problems with fish? I can't help on the latter, but I know of two people who tested their own aquariums (without de-chlor) who found tap water levels of 4-5ppm on large (>30%) water changes experienced 0.25ppm instantly afterwards, and 0ppm within 5 minutes.

Playing troll bait for a minute here, are you saying my tanks are so depleted in oxygen that the fish will put their lives at risk by swimming in poison, just to get at that oxygen?