Question about dechlorinator

[Lady Hobbs]

I was chatting with my neighbor today about our fish tanks. (He's the person I gave my gourami's to.) Anyway, I realized I had run out of dechlorinator after I had done a water change today and asked him if I could borrow some. HE DOESN'T USE IT! huh? I told him his fish would die and he told me he's had them for 8 years and never used anything but water right from the tap. I could hardly believe it but it brought up a question for me.

I dechlorinate the water for the entire tank and not just what I replace. I've read of people doing it both ways and since you can't overdose with dechlorinater, I chose to use enough for the entire tank. If I did a water change today, would there be enough dechorinator already in the tank to keep me from going into panic mode and driving the 20 miles to town? Or does the charcoal filter also remove dechorinator?

[CJ1]

Let water sit for 24 hours, aerate if possible. Water treatmenst can get expensive. Use something to measure amount and use just what's needed. Saves good chunk of change in the end.

[Fishguy2727]

24 hour wait period and aeration only work if it's chlorine, but many companies use chloramines, which will not evaporate. So if you don;t knwo what is int your tap you have to be safer than sorry. Dechlorinators are best. I have heard of people using carbon, but would not use it myself.

[Lady Hobbs]

I use Start Right which contains the chloramines. I heard that without the chloramines that the metals will not be removed from the water so I try to play the safest route.

In the beginning, I was only treating water I was replacing but I seemed to use even more dechlorinator than if I treated the whole tank by the time I added a bit to each bucket I poured. Probably used more than I should have that way.

I can't understand why this guys fish have not died using nothing.

[NorthernBoy]

One of my old girlfriends had beta for 2.5 years and never used dechorinater and did 100% water changes every week straight out the tap! He was a very happy beta too....for 2.5 years at least.

[jeffs99dime]

i heard good things about the stuff called PRIME. anyone else hear good things about it?

[Fishguy2727]

The chloramines are not in the conditioner, they are in the tap and are toxic like chlorine. And that has nothing to do with other ingredients in conditioners that detoxify heavy metals.

[turbomkt]

Jeff,
All I use is prime. On smaller tanks I use buckets that get Prime added before addition to the tank. On my 50g, I add enough to dose the entire tank (5ml) and just add tap water directly to the tank. This is with a 50% water change.

Oh yeah...I got the 2l bottle from Big Al's...

[Glasstapper]

I would think the same thing, hobbs. I thought for sure fish would die if you didn't remove the chemicals from the tap water. Interesting. I won't try it, though.

To answer your question, yes I think your partial water change will be fine if you don't have dechlorinator this time.

I use NovAqua. When I do my water changes, I first take out whatever amount of water I'm doing that day (usually 20% is the norm). After the water is removed and my bucket is filling up again, I go ahead and add the dechlorinator directly to my tank but just enought to replace what was removed (you save on dechlorinator this way). I have to adjust my pH as well, so I go ahead and do the same with my pH decrease chemical. My pH hasn't budged using this method, so I always do it this way. I figure my buckets of water will come in the next 5 minutes, so there's no need to measure it for each bucket.