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Do you add any substance on water change day?

ian_m said:
Chloramine gets broken down into chlorine and ammonia by the carbon prefilter
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Prompted me to read further:thumbup:. 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.
 
Mr. Teapot said:
I also didn't know the ammonia passed through the membrane. Now understand why the reefers use their DI pods.
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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.....
 
Andy D said:
will go back to dechlorinating to be on the safe side.
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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
 
Ro here, then salty shrimp on both tanks.

Also ei in hightech no ferts whatsoever ever in the crs cbs just remineralize.
 
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.
 
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
 
luckyjim said:
Thanks Ian, good shout. I have looked up my readings in central London, anybody know how to convert them to ppm?
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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.
 
Thanks Rahms. Seems like quite a high level of nitrate to be adding during a water change!
 
Are you sure you haven't read the EU max allowable figures ? which I know NO3 is 50mg/l.
 
You're quite right Ian I looked at the PCV ("prescribed concentration value"). The mean average is actually 24ppm.
 
I use rainwater with some re-mineralisation product and an alovera based fish de-stress thing.
 
i put my water in a tank for 24hrs circulate with a pump and air stone and a heater
add prime
 
george dicker said:
I run a reef aswell, would you recommend prime if ro/di water has chloramine in it
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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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