Water Changing questions

[packer43064]

the python works well for a lot of people. However how many people that answer this thread even know what there measured chlorine / chloramines levels are if they are on city water?

I got lucky for 2 years until I moved.
My water comes from filtered river water, rains and snow affect tap water quality, esp.: nitrates....construction in the area? The city will increase the disinfectant level? How much prime do you need? directions on cap will only lower water level to a certain degree...as we know prime does not remove Ammonia it only converts it to a non toxic form where your bio filter will clean it up. So a lot of you are gambling by dosing on entire tank volume first and then directly filling from the tap..how many PPM of chloramine does your tap water have? Nitrates? Nitrites? AMM? Lead? Arsenic? Flouride? My tap is sometimes around 20 PPM of Nitrate , one the chemical by products we are trying to remove by water changes


Stunted , shortened life’s are the after effect of bad water .. Take it from me , the prime didn't immediately take care of my tank, the city increased their chemicals in the water that day. Causing by bio bed to dies off .
Needless to say it's safer to buy a Rubbermaid brute and let your treated water sit for 24 hours. Then take a small pump to refill your tank with SAFE aged water.


from Seachem:
Use 1 capful (5 mL) for each 200 L (50 gallons*) of new water. This removes approximately 1 mg/L ammonia, 4 mg/L chloramine, or 5 mg/L chlorine.

Tisk Tisk. If you use Prime BEFORE filling with a python like we've been talking about then you would dose for the WHOLE tank. Says it right on the back of the bottle.

So if you have a 200 gallon tank and did a 50 gallon water change and you dosed for the whole tank as in 200 gallons. The Prime would be doing 4X the amount of removing chemicals. You can safely dose for 5X the tank volume if you pleased also.

I'm no scientist nor do I care too much to hassle if this way works or not. I'm sure some places are jacked way up in chlorine and whatever else. For the majority of people it works. OP do as you want. Make a poll in the Setup and Filtration section of this website and you will see that the majority of people do this.Their tanks are not dying or anything.

 

[BODYDUB]

I use a python and add dechlorinizer to the tank before I reverse the flow............

 

[wheelsmith]

chlorine dioxide breaks down when exposed to sunlight/uv and air so using a shop brought declorinizer is mostly a sales gimmick, stand the water for 10 mins or so and give it a good splash, jobs done.
chloramine can be tasted/smelt and used more now because its easier and safer to handle than chlorine, treat it with chlorine or charcoal/resin. if you can smell/taste it its above legal levels. grab a sample, lodge a complaint
whats more of a concern to us is the high level of nitrates in our treated water, mines about 35ppm, i think 70ppm is the limit in the uk at mo.

 

[Mr Pleco]

Tisk Tisk. If you use Prime BEFORE filling with a python like we've been talking about then you would dose for the WHOLE tank. Says it right on the back of the bottle.

So if you have a 200 gallon tank and did a 50 gallon water change and you dosed for the whole tank as in 200 gallons. The Prime would be doing 4X the amount of removing chemicals. You can safely dose for 5X the tank volume if you pleased also.

I'm no scientist nor do I care too much to hassle if this way works or not. I'm sure some places are jacked way up in chlorine and whatever else. For the majority of people it works. OP do as you want. Make a poll in the Setup and Filtration section of this website and you will see that the majority of people do this.Their tanks are not dying or anything.

Packer you must own stock in seachem or like buying prime?
I agree you have to treat the whole capacity of the tank. However when your dealing with maintaining 1325 gallons of water ....it's more cost effective to treat only the water being added.. plus as stated you never know what , where , how much and when your water company is going to dose your water supply. By leaving it age 24 hours you can be assured most of the disenfectent is gone from your tap water.

I'd rather be safe then sorry , but to each his own. and just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it right?

 

[packer43064]

^^^
Yes I like buying Prime.
Also agreed on what your saying.

 

[Zander_The_RBP]

chlorine dioxide breaks down when exposed to sunlight/uv and air so using a shop brought declorinizer is mostly a sales gimmick, stand the water for 10 mins or so and give it a good splash, jobs done.
chloramine can be tasted/smelt and used more now because its easier and safer to handle than chlorine, treat it with chlorine or charcoal/resin. if you can smell/taste it its above legal levels. grab a sample, lodge a complaint
whats more of a concern to us is the high level of nitrates in our treated water, mines about 35ppm, i think 70ppm is the limit in the uk at mo.

Yes legal levels for chlorine and chloramine are so they don't harm us as people, they will still harm fish who are actualy breathing in the **** (believe me go try to breath in even 1 ppm chlorine you'll lungs will become irratated very fast and after prolonged exposure you'll begin coughing up blood). typically they use about 1-2 ppm chlorine to treat tapwater or 3-4 ppm of chloramine.

chlorine is rapidly neutralized in stomach acid so it dosen't matter if you drink it, it does however matter if your breathing it.


It's not chlorine dioxide used to treat tap water either, it's free dichlorine (Cl2) or monochloramine (ClNH2) or dichloramine Cl2NH) ocassional over dosing chloramine can form the highly toxic nitrogen trichloride (Cl3N) chlorine dioxide is used but as a precursor to chlorination is is enitrely removed form the water by the time it leaves the plant they use it to actualy kill off any bacteria very quickly. The chlorine and chloramine in our water is merely preventative and would take a couple of hours to kill off bacteria.
Chloramine is the problem. For chlorine you can simply agitate it(for an hour at the least IMO) and it will gas off, chloramine However, is very stable so using a dechlorinator is a must.
chloramine is about as toxic as ammonia to fish and chlorine is far more toxic.


Dechlorinators hardly need to be dosed based on tank volume. Dose for the amount of water changed and you'll be fine (saying otherwise is a sales gimick).


Dechlorinators work by using sodium thiosulfate to bond to the chlorine atom there by creating salt (NaCl) and some leftover sulfer) it neutralizes chloramine by pulling the chlorine atom off the nitrogen atom and becoming salt. A hydrogen atom from something else in the water then comes in to replace the chlorine forming some leftover ammonia. (NH3 or NH4+)


wow 70 ppm is the max on your nitrate level for your tap water jeez ours here in Ontario is 20.


Anyway the levels of chlorine in our tapwater are not instant death for any bacteria living in your filters it would take atleast a couple of hours to kill off any. During actual treatment it's much higher there is just a preventative dose left in the water as long as it's neutralized within a couple of minutes your fine.