Safe “Safe” dosage

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Chockful O Phail

Chockful O Phail

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Feb 9, 2015
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Council Bluffs, IA
Can someone help me out please? I thought I’d try to save a bit by using Safe instead of Prime. I must have really got the dose wrong because I lost a few fish and broke the cycle on 2 tanks.(unless my tap was utterly horrible this week but the water company says they weren’t flushing) So I use the big jugs of Prime where one cap treats 100 gallons. I use three with a little splash over in the 180, 2 on the 125, 1 on the 75, and nearly one on the 40b. Done this way for years+ and haven’t had an issue. Following Seachems recommendations I used 4 of their little spoons(1 spoon = 50 gallons) on the 180, 3 on the 125, a kind of heaped one on the 75, and about half of one on the 40b. So the 180 and 40 both had cycle issues just after the water change I believe due to O2 loss. I didn’t catch the bacteria explosion in the 180 because I did the ridx at the same time and it usually takes half a day to clear up. Lost 2 of my clowns and the BGK and 2 Bala sharks(the sharks have been randomly dying so this can be chalked up to weakness I believe) . I did another WC on both tanks because they were showing a bit of nitrite 2 days later. This fixed the 180s cycle but the 40 was still struggling. Added a little media from the 125(which along with the 75 didn’t have issues) to the 40 and this morning it seems to have recovered. I would like this to not happen again so if anyone can help me with the proper dosage that’d be great. Or any other suggestions as to the cause/s. Water Works here says 10ppm chloramine I believe the last time I checked, but they also say 10 nitrates and thats almost never true for what it’s worth.

180 is sumped with a 40b and 2 large sponge filters, 40b has an AC110 and a large sponge filter.
 
10 ppm chloramine sounds extremely high. The standard dose is for 1 ppm chloramine if I am not mistaken.

Edit:
From the FAQ on seachems website


Q: How can I calculate how much Safe to use if I know exactly how much chlorine, chloramine or ammonia is present in my water?
A: In some situations one may be aware of their exact chloramine or chlorine levels and will wish to precisely tailor the amount of Safe used. This information is provided as is and it is assumed one is sufficiently adept at the mathematics to do the proper calculations in order to determine the amount of Safe needed for a given concentration of chloramine, chorine or ammonia.

The standard dose of 100 mg/100 L of water will remove 1 mg/L (ppm) of chloramine, 1.4 mg/L (ppm) of chlorine and 0.33 mg/L (ppm) of ammonia.
A general formula that should help to determine the amount to use in mg for a given chloramine level is

x = L*c where x = amount to use in mg, L = volume of water (tank volume if added to tank, or source volume if water change water), c = chloramine level in mg/L (ppm). So a 500 L tank with 2.5 mg/L of chloramine would require 500 * 2.5 = 1,250 mg or 1.25 g of Safe, for gallons the formula is

x = 4*G*c (where G = gallons and 4 is a constant)

for chlorine it would be

x = 0.7*L*n where x = amount to use in mg, L = volume of water (tank volume if added to tank, or source volume if water change water). n = chlorine level in mg/L (ppm). So a 500 L tank with 2.5 mg/L of chlorine would require 500 * 2.5 * 0.7 = 875 mg, for gallons the formula is

x = 2.8*G*n (where G=gallons and 2.8 is a constant)

for ammonia it would be

x = 3*L*a where x = amount to use in mg, L = volume of water (tank volume if added to tank, or source volume if water change water). a = ammonia level in mg/L (ppm). So a 500 L tank with 2.5 mg/L of ammonia would require 500 * 2.5 * 3 = 3750 or 3.75 g for gallons the formula is

x = 12*G*n (where G=gallons and 12 is a constant)
 
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robham777 said:
The water quality report from 2016 for Council Bluffs does not even list chloramine, but a chlorine range of .15-2.51ppm, did they recently switch to chloramine?

https://www.cbwaterworks.com/Documents/WaterQualityReport2017.pdf
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I’ve seen that one and another report that says total chlorine which as others on here have said is chloramine. I’ve looked for it again but can’t find it, I’m 90% certain they use chloramine here. Edit: of course that leaves 10% which in my experience is the way to go lol.

Idk, I just haven’t had issues with prime and would rather not go through that again.
 
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Chockful O Phail said:
I’ve seen that one and another report that says total chlorine which as others on here have said is chloramine. I’ve looked for it again but can’t find it, I’m 90% certain they use chloramine here. Edit: of course that leaves 10% which in my experience is the way to go lol.

Idk, I just haven’t had issues with prime and would rather not go through that again.
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No doubt, that really sucks to lose those fish. I started using safe a few months ago and ended up dosing for the max detect of chlorine reported by my utility and that has worked so far and saved me some money. It does seem like from time to time someone has issues when switching to the product, so I think using the correct dose is more important with safe than with prime. Except for the information provided by your utility I am not sure how you can get a precise reading for the type or level of disinfectant out of your tap.

RD. RD. seems to be the most knowledge person around when it comes to these products, hopefully he will have some insight for you.
 
Dang, so sorry to hear that. The EPA max in the USA is I think 3 or 4ppm, and IMHO the average rate for chloramine across the board is typically 2 ppm, the highest I have ever seen stateside was Miami, at 4ppm. 10 ppm seems highly unlikely. So yes, you overdosed, which most likely caused a sudden drop in 02 levels. I went a few rounds with Seachem over their new labels a year or two back, which caused the CEO to add the math equations posted by robham. It's not as complicated as it seems, but in Seachem's opinion the average consumer can't add 1+1 so they came up with the 1ppm rate, so folks wouldn't overdose, causing 02 depletion. I'm at work, let me look up one of the old threads on this, maybe it will help a bit. Really sorry to hear about your fish.
 
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robham777 said:
standard dose of 100 mg/100 L of water
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Hello; Allow me to likely add to the confusion, or as is my hope, to help a bit. When I first read about the dosing of SAFE the very small amounts needed stood out. Let me give some examples.
1 gram = .0353 ounce or about 35 thousands of an ounce. (if I figure correctly)
1 liter = 1.0567 quart so 100 liters is 105.67 quarts or also about 26.41 gallons
100 mg = one tenth of a gram as there are a thousand mg in each gram.

To me this means you need 1/10th of a gram for each 26 gallons. A 1/10 gram measure is hard to do. That would take a pretty good scale to measure out.

Here is how I might try to get at it. If I did the math correctly the OP has a total of 460 gallons of water with the sump. I missed it if he/she said what % of water is changed so will use 50%.
That means 230 gallons for the total amount of water changed.

Now here is a questionable part of my plan. I have learned that once mixed in water SAFE is only good for maybe thirty days. So I am thinking of mixing enough for three WC at one each week. That gets the amount of water changed to 690 gallons.

So for 690 gallons it should take 26.5 portions at 1/10th gram per portion. That should be 2.65 grams total to treat all 690 gallons.
At 2.65 gm X .0353 oz/1 gm = 0.093 oz. ( just under a tenth of an ounce). Still a small amount but maybe easier to get at.

Mix that 0.093 into some water. Divide that by three and you have a mixed dose for one WC. I wont go any further into how to figure for each tank right not because I have not figured it out yet and this entire idea may get shot down.

Start shooting.
 
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Chockful, by the looks of your water report your max chlorine residual is 2.5 ppm, which probably peaks during spring run off, and/or after heavy rain storms. Otherwise you are probably the same as I am most of the year, which is close to 2 ppm.

I still use the same formula as I have since I began using Safe several years ago.

Chlorine: use 5 g (1 tsp.*) to each 1625 L (450 gallons*) of tap water (removes 4 ppm).
Chloramine: use 5 g (1 tsp.*) to each 1250 L (300 gallons*) of tap water (removes 4 ppm).
Ammonia: use 5 g (1 tsp.*) to each 400 L (100 gallons*) of tap water (removes 4 ppm). Do not overdose!


If you have 2 ppm chloramine, like I do, then simply divide by two. So 1/2 teaspoon of Safe will treat 300 gallons. 1/4 teaspoon will treat 150 gallons, etc. Kitchen measuring spoons from the $1 store work well.
 
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