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Re: Dechlorinators



>From: Paul Bucciaglia <paul-b at biosci_cbs.umn.edu>
>
>1) I currently use Tap water conditioner, which claims to dechlorinate 
>and 'remove heavy metals'.  How long is this active after addition to tap 
>water? Will this result in a serious reduction of micronutrients (Zn, Mo, 
>Mn) added after dechlorinaiton?  Any dechlorinators which will not interfere 
>with micronutrient fertilizers?   I remember hearing that Na thiosulfate 
>was  an effective 
>dechlorinator--does it work on choramines, and at what concentration?

I still have Amquel, but I haven't used it in years.  When I change or top-off 
water on my tanks I will do one of the following:

1)  Add untreated tap water to my tanks.  I only do this in small amounts
because I don't want to poison anything, but I've found that my plants are
about the best dechlorinators I can come across, even if they do it at a slight
possible detriment to themselves.

2)  Filter the tap water through activated carbon prior to addition to the
tank.  I usually do this only on larger water changes.  I don't want to add
that much chlorine to my tank, and I understand that activated carbon will
strip the chlorine component out of the water.  This adds the benefit of
eliminating some heavy metals from the water as well.

3)  Let the water age for 3 days.  This is supposed to break the chloramine
bond and give time for at least most of the chlorine to evaporate.  I'm
currently using this regimen on my tanks because I'm not close to a water
change on either of them.

The reason I haven't mentioned the ammonium component of the chloramines is
because I really don't care about it.  As far as I'm concerned, the ammonium is
just fertilizer waiting to be used, so in my planted tanks, it's not an issue.

I have a third tank with a coarse green algae bed growing in 7x24h lighting.
This tank gets straight tap water additions with no degredation of the algae
bed.

I hope this is at least interesting.

David W. Webb
Enterprise Computing Provisioning
Texas Instruments Inc. Dallas, TX USA
(214) 575-3443 (voice)  MSGID:       DAWB
(214) 575-4853 (fax)    Internet:    dwebb at ti_com
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