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Re: declorinators, water conditioners

On Sun, Sep 09, 2001 at 07:39:24AM -0500, Tom Wood wrote:
> >> What do you think is the best dechlorinator to use in the planted tank.
> >> By best I mean one that will not interfere with water pH and also metals
> >> from the trace element that we add.
> 
> >Amquel. I've used it for years.
> 
> I keep Amquel handy for emergency large water changes. But if you change 20%
> or less of the water at any given time, then there is little need for any
> conditioner at all (IMO, etc). Our tapwater is treated with chloramine and I
> don't treat it.

Really. 

In another lifetime I used to do 20% (or higher) changes without using
any water conditioner, but the water had been treated with only chlorine.

Then I set up a new tank in a new city and tried the same trick
... and lost over 75% of the stock in the tank. I then discovered that
Richmond treats it's water with chloramine, and after reading all the
warnings on the net about this stuff, I assumed I had found the
culprit. I started using Amquel and the problem went away. (Amquel is
good stuff; been using it for years and have never observed any
adverse affects on the fish or plants. Of course that does not prove
it does what it's advertised to do - adding a single capful of X for
every 10 gallons of water you change will also do no harm if X is also
water or some inert, harmless solution!)

Now your comments make me wonder if my assumptions all those years ago
were incorrect? 

Maybe, maybe not. One thing that is assumed in these discussions is
that the *concentrations* of chlorine or chloramine is roughly the
same in everyone's tap water, but I know for a fact that this is
incorrect ... especially for chlorine which does not remain in
solution as long as chloramine (i.e. the further you are from the
water plant the lower the concentrations in your water).

Also - maybe I was just very unlucky and my fish losses were due to
some other quirk in the water that day?

The bottom line is that you may be correct - I may be able to get away
with NOT using Amquel during my water changes. But the cost of being
wrong is too high for me to risk trying it ... I will leave those
experiments to someone else.

dan
-- 
Dan Resler                            email: dresler at vcu_edu
Computer Science Dept.
Virginia Commonwealth University           
Richmond, VA 23284-2014 USA