# Do you add any substance on water change day?



## Frenchi (16 Mar 2015)

Hi
Just wondering if you guys add any kind of substance to your tap water on water change day? 
I use seachem prime to dechlorinate but is there anything else that would benifit a planted aquarium..
I'm using EI dosing and full co2 ..
Cheers

Mick 


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## Jose (16 Mar 2015)

Frenchi said:


> Just wondering if you guys add any kind of substance to your tap water on water change day?


Not me. Just dechlorinator.


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## Vinkenoog1977 (16 Mar 2015)

Just Prime as well, and Stability in immature setups.


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## ian_m (16 Mar 2015)

I've used AmQuel+ on immature tanks that I have had to put fish in to keep ammonia under control.


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## Greenfinger2 (16 Mar 2015)

Hi Frenchi, I just leave my tap water in a 25Lt plastic water container over night. Nothing added nothing taken away

Never had a problem with this method


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## ian_m (16 Mar 2015)

Greenfinger2 said:


> Never had a problem with this method


Unless your tap water contains chloramine, in which case no change over night and dead filter bacteria in the morning....


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## Frenchi (16 Mar 2015)

I thought I had read somewhere that people added some kind of buffer or something to aid planted tanks .. My reading is poor and probably read it very wrong lol ..  


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## Greenfinger2 (16 Mar 2015)

ian_m said:


> Unless your tap water contains chloramine, in which case no change over night and dead filter bacteria in the morning....




Hi Ian, Thank you  Just re read up on this  I have been very very lucky then. Been doing this for 2 years My fish and Amano shrimp have not had any ill affects ??? 

Will start using  Seachem prime from now on  Great thread Frenchi  Thanks again i am no longer in the dark on this


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## Sacha (16 Mar 2015)

I use RO water and so I re-mineralise with JBL Aquadur. That's just because I refuse to use London tap water, though.


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## Andy D (16 Mar 2015)

I use Re-min RO for water changes so no need to dechlorinate or add anything else than has already been added.


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## Frenchi (16 Mar 2015)

That's what it's all about .. It always helps to know what others do 


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## Rahms (16 Mar 2015)

Greenfinger2 said:


> Hi Ian, Thank you  Just re read up on this  I have been very very lucky then. Been doing this for 2 years My fish and Amano shrimp have not had any ill affects ???
> 
> Will start using  Seachem prime from now on  Great thread Frenchi  Thanks again i am no longer in the dark on this



It depends on what your local water is treated with.  The fact that your fish and shrimp are happy would point towards chlorine treatment rather than chloramine, so there shouldn't be a need to start dosing.....

Not sure if there's a precedent for water treatment changing though. i.e. if anyone with chlorine-treated water has ever woken up to find their treatment (by their provider) has changed to chloramine


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## Greenfinger2 (16 Mar 2015)

Rahms said:


> It depends on what your local water is treated with.  The fact that your fish and shrimp are happy would point towards chlorine treatment rather than chloramine, so there shouldn't be a need to start dosing.....
> 
> Not sure if there's a precedent for water treatment changing though. i.e. if anyone with chlorine-treated water has ever woken up to find their treatment (by their provider) has changed to chloramine



Thank you 
I thought my water was treated with chlorine. That's why i was just leaving it over night. Only to read Thames water use chloramine  Well you learn something new everyday on this great site


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## ian_m (16 Mar 2015)

Rahms said:


> if anyone with chlorine-treated water has ever woken up to find their treatment (by their provider) has changed to chloramine


Yes. I have had chloramine injected twice (once at current house and once at last house) both after water main bursts and living downhill from the burst. Last house I had a leaflet pushed through door, about possible dirty tap water and not to use for fish tanks. In current house I had no water pressure and smelly "chloriny" water for days afterwards. Fish were fine as I was using Prime.

See this post. He lost £622 of fish due to chloramine being added in an emergency.
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/seachem-prime.32926/#post-349744

Also some areas of Scotland have changed from chlorine to chloramine due to logistical issues of chlorine supply in remote locations.

Note also RO units (especially cheaper ones) do not always guarantee chloramine removal. If you have chloramine and an RO unit you should really be using a bigger/better carbon pre-filter as chloramine is harder to remove than chlorine from water using standard carbon filters. There are special chloramine pre-filters designed to do this. If you don't do this the chlorine will ruin your RO membrane and the ammonia will pass straight through into the RO water.


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## luckyjim (16 Mar 2015)

Frenchi said:


> echlorinate but is there anything else that would benifit a planted aquarium..
> I'm using EI dosing and full co2 ..





Sacha said:


> I use RO water and so I re-mineralise with JBL Aquadur. That's just because I refuse to use London tap water, though.



Is London tapwater particularly bad Sacha? I live in central London!


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## Greenfinger2 (16 Mar 2015)

Hi All, Been in deep thought 42 
Over why i have been so lucky not to have killed my fish or shrimp. When doing water changes. When there is  chloramine in Thames water.

As i said "" I just leave my tap water in a 25Lt plastic water container over night ""  One thing I thought of that i did not mention  I live in the top floor flat of a small block there are two flats below. Being on the top floor we have the loft with a very large water tank up there "" Its Huge "" That supplied all three flats with bathroom water only The rest is supplied from the mains. The people who live below us in both flats are hardly ever there they work away a lot. 

Well I only use the bath tap to refill the water container  Never from the mains water.
This water could be in the tank how long ?????? We don't even use this water to clean our teeth  So maybe this is the reason i have got away with it ??? 

Any thoughts on this will be appreciated


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## tam (16 Mar 2015)

ian_m said:


> Note also RO units (especially cheaper ones) do not always guarantee chloramine removal. If you have chloramine and an RO unit you should really be using a bigger/better carbon pre-filter as chloramine is harder to remove than chlorine from water using standard carbon filters. There are special chloramine pre-filters designed to do this. If you don't do this the chlorine will ruin your RO membrane and the ammonia will pass straight through into the RO water.



Would the Chloramine show up in the TDS?


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## ian_m (17 Mar 2015)

Chloramine gets broken down into chlorine and ammonia by the carbon prefilter. Usually the chlorine will get absorbed by the carbon if flow is slow enough but ammonia passes through the carbon and RO membrane.

Might affect tds as ammonia is probably ionised in resultant water.

All not a problem if using correct and not exhausted carbon prefilter.


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## naughtymoose (17 Mar 2015)

I bought a three-stage HMA filter. The two-stage filters will remove a small amount of chloramine in addition to sediment, heavy metals and chlorine. The three-stage unit has a supa-dupa chlorplus filter (the sort used in the medical industry) that removes chloramines as well.

Bought off ebay.


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## ian_m (17 Mar 2015)

Interesting article here on chloramine and RO units. Looks like a DI unit after the RO membrane will remove the ammonia passing through the membrane.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-11/rhf/feature/

So you need to make sure you carbon pre-filter is not worn out and DI resin isn't exhausted and you will be OK.

Again there are numerous reports of people killing all their fish when using RO water (especially marine) and the cause was failure to change carbon filter leading to saturated carbon pre-filter no longer removing chlorine/chloramine.


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## Mr. Teapot (17 Mar 2015)

ian_m said:


> Chloramine gets broken down into chlorine and ammonia by the carbon prefilter


Prompted me to read further. I had no idea the activated carbon surface is a catalyst rather than absorbing the chloramine. I also didn't know the ammonia passed through the membrane. Now understand why the reefers use their DI pods.


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## ian_m (17 Mar 2015)

Mr. Teapot said:


> I also didn't know the ammonia passed through the membrane. Now understand why the reefers use their DI pods.


Yes there are many many stories where people have switched to using RO water (especially cheaper units), from using dechlorinated water their reasons are "cos the waters purer", "cos don't need to bother dechlorinating any more", "etc etc" and have killed all their fish after a short while. This has been traced to high ammonia (and sometimes free chlorine) in their tank, which being the Internet generates loads of irrelevant waffle about RO water pulling ammonia out of substrates, makes dead fish rot quicker etc etc where as in fact the ammonia (and chlorine) came in via the RO water and poor RO unit.

Big boy reefers, let their RO water stand/settle 24hours before use (my mate used to do this this the late 80's with his RO water, I now know why) in which the ammonia will dissipate, or test their water (and yes test kits in these circumstance do work as water is not contaminated) or just add dechlorinator (AmQuel+) anyway, before using the water. When fish are upwards of £100 each spending a couple of £ is well worth it. Saw some marine fish in a shop for £199 each at the weekend.....


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## Andy D (17 Mar 2015)

Interesting! I had read that RO did not need dechlorinating. I have DI resin that gives me a TDS of zero but I will go back to dechlorinating to be on the safe side.


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## ian_m (17 Mar 2015)

Andy D said:


> will go back to dechlorinating to be on the safe side.


If you are worried you should be using something like AmQuel+ which removes ammonia, most dechlorinators do not remove ammonia, as it is generally ammonia (from broken down chloramine) that can be present in the RO water. Generally I think you can trust a TDS meter, should be zero if all is working well.

Or just ensure your carbon pre-filter & DI resin are OK.

A local fish shop owner showed me his water purification (nice chat up line, worked for me ) and he just date labelled his carbon pre-filters and DI resin, changed when date was due and occasionally tested the stored RO water for chlorine and ammonia as these were the most likely contaminants. And yes he had had test failures, fitted a new RO membrane once, tested water and tested positive for chlorine and nitrate and had high TDS, basically the RO membrane was faulty out of the packet. If he had supplied RO water in that state it would have killed marine fish and produce algae blooms. I think you can DIY recharge the final ion exchange resin by soaking it in salt solution, though debatable if worth it.

Nice bit here about chlorine and chloramine.
http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/chlorine-chloramine


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## kirk (17 Mar 2015)

Ro here, then salty shrimp on both tanks.  

Also ei in hightech no ferts whatsoever ever in the crs cbs just remineralize.


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## candymancan (18 Mar 2015)

When I change the water in my Hexagon tank sometimes I might add in a little seachem flourish and iron..  But usually  all my tanks I never dose anything anymore..  Ive found it a waste of money and my plants do fine sometimes I might add some in every now and then though..   As for prime...  in my 44-55g I add 2 cap fulls, the other tanks 1 capfull (minus my smaller like 2g and 5g tank I add half a cap for them..  I noticed 1 capfull isnt really enough to remove the chlorine fast enough so that's why I use two..  And the reason I noticed this was my discus which are very sensitive to water.. if I use 1 capfull they freak out with the water change, but two they are fine..

Also I NEVER dose any ferts in my discus tank ever... I do have live plants in their but yea... ive had discus literally spazzz out completetly the minute I added flourish.


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## ianh (20 Mar 2015)

I find a good source of reference to water chemistry is my water suppliers website. South Staffs Water publish water quality Zone reports: http://www.south-staffs-water.co.uk/your_home/water_quality_reports.asp# I am sure others must


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## luckyjim (20 Mar 2015)

Thanks Ian, good shout. I have looked up my readings in central London, anybody know how to convert them to ppm?

This is out of interest really I suppose, since the bacteria/plants should really be dealing with these concentrations fairly easily/quickly?

Ammonium as NH4, mg/l: 0.5

Nitrate as NO3, mg/l: 50

Nitrite as NO2, mg/l: 0.5


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## Rahms (20 Mar 2015)

luckyjim said:


> Thanks Ian, good shout. I have looked up my readings in central London, anybody know how to convert them to ppm?



They're the same. A milligram is one millionth of a litre of water eg. 1mg/l is 1 mg per kg of water, and 1kg=1million mg.  so it would be 1mg per 1million mg aka 1ppm.


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## luckyjim (20 Mar 2015)

Thanks Rahms. Seems like quite a high level of nitrate to be adding during a water change!


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## ian_m (20 Mar 2015)

Are you sure you haven't read the EU max allowable figures ? which I know NO3 is 50mg/l.


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## luckyjim (20 Mar 2015)

You're quite right Ian I looked at the PCV ("prescribed concentration value"). The mean average is actually 24ppm.


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## Manrock (20 Mar 2015)

I use rainwater with some re-mineralisation product and an alovera based fish de-stress thing.


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## dougstar (20 Mar 2015)

i put my water in a tank for 24hrs circulate with a pump and air stone and a heater
add prime


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## george dicker (18 Apr 2015)

I run a reef aswell, would you recommend prime if ro/di water has chloramine in it


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## parotet (18 Apr 2015)

george dicker said:


> I run a reef aswell, would you recommend prime if ro/di water has chloramine in it


Seachem Prime is IMO a good water conditioner that ensures removing chloramines (may sound strange but other conditioners do not mention this specifically). The other good thing is its price, which is very good due to the very small amount of product needed.
It is the product I used, but not anymore... During the last years I have forgotten to add it several times during WCs without any consequence. So I decided not to use it anymore. I suppose it means that I don't have chloramines or other products that may harm my critters.. I also use now my tap water to rinse the sponges and clean the filter, with no consequences even on immature tanks.

Jordi


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