No Declorinator?!?!

[supermazz9]

I'm cruising throught the posts, and one post caught my eye...at the end of it dapellegrini claims to not use declorinator!

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=91585

Does anyone else do this? Is it possible he's using a product for some other effect but it's a dechlorinator too?

 

[SCFatz]

Most probably well water.

For chlorinated water you can bucket it,agitate it (air bubbles) and wait a day.The chlorine will evaporate off and your good.

This will not work for cloramine,which is a common substitute in many water supplies.

If you are not on a well,buy it and use it.Its just too cheap not too imo.

 

[bs6749]

I use mainly RO/DI in my tank so I don't really ever need to use dechlor.

 

[dapellegrini]

Yep, I think I am on well water. I have used just about every type/brand you can buy at the store, but I have not seen any difference when I don't add it, so it is now usually overlooked. In fact I noticed that using API Stress Coat would create a slimy film on the top of my water. Prime seemed to be the best, but again, it just doesn't seem to make any difference. I would say maybe once every few month, if I feel like a have significantly disrupted the balance in the tank, I might throw in some dechlor, but not a common thing.

I use a python, so the water goes straight into the tank. No aeration, treatment, etc.

I do add dry ferts (EI Dosing) as the tank is heavily planted and I do a 50% PWC every Saturday. I also inject CO2 and have a high level of filtration on my tank now, all which may contribute to not needing dechlor?

I was also wondering if others out there skip dechlor...

 

[andywg]

Plenty of people skip ferts. On another forum two UK guys stopped using dechlor and found the fish were fin even 6 months later and even looked brighter. I know of someone else I chat to who stopped using dechlor on her tanks about 6 months ago and has had no problems.

Chlorine gasses out of water quite quickly as mentioned above. Chloramines are actually not a problem in an established tank. The bacteria are actually quite resistant to the chloramine and actually use the ammonia in the molecule for food. A member of another forum found this research on the effect of chloramine on ammonia and nitrite oxidisng bacteria:

Well, a quick perusal of the scientific literature came up with some rather surprising results.

Firstly, and most surprising to me, the problem ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) growing in water utilities' facilities is becoming a somewhat serious issue. The chloramine does in fact, promote the growth of AOB and NOB, with the consequences -- written is a nice non-threatening way as -- "...the addition of chloramines can lead to biological instability in a drinking water distribution system by promoting the growth of nitrifying bacteria..." and "The resulting reduction in chloramine residual and development of a microbial community in the distribution system lead to water quality deterioration and violation of drinking water regulations." I think that I might very well have put a little more emphasis on violations of the drinking water regulations.

Basically, because the AOB and NOB grow, they excrete other organic compounds allowing other bacteria to grow. At the very minimum, this additional bacteria will require more chloramine to kill it off, but then, more chloramine promotes more growth of AOB and NOB, and I think you can see where this cycle is going... Here is the really bad news, with this extra growth, all that stuff we don't want in there could grow now, like the coliform bacteria (E. coli -- think spinach), and viruses, and Guardia lamblia and so on. All of these are pretty strictly required to be below certain levels by the U.S. EPA, and similarly in other countries.

Secondly, the really interesting part is that in lab test after lab test, the recommended exposure times and concentrations of chloramines do their jobs. The chloramines in the lab kill off all the organics, including the AOB and NOB. However, at the utility side of the issue, nitrification episodes are rather commonplace. One recent study found 63% of U.S. chloramining utilities and 64% of Southern Australian utilities tested positive for nitrifying bacteria.

One hypothesis for the discrepancy between the laboratory studies and operating results is that there are AOB strains
growing in full-scale systems that possess a greater chloramine resistance than those studied in the kinetic experiments. Whether the AOB strains used in earlier kinetic studies are representative of significant strains involved in full-scale nitrification episodes has not been confirmed, since there are no published evaluations of AOB diversity in chloraminated distribution systems.

This quote, and the above ones, from Regan, Harrington, and Noguera: "Ammonia- and Nitrite-Oxidizing Bacterial Communities in a Pilot-Scale Chloraminated Drinking Water Distribution System" Applied and Enviromental Microbiology 2002. The study where the %'s came from was Wolfe et al. "Occurrence of nitrification in chloranimated distribution systems" Journal (American Water Works Association), 1996

In other words, the strains that are in the water utilities have become more resistant to chloramines, and can indeed use the ammonia present as sustenance.

And, back to fishtanks, where do the AOB and NOB come from in the first place? Well, if you used tap water, they probably came from your water utility, and if a resistant strain has grown there... that same chloramine resistant strain is probably now growing in your tank too. The Regan et al. study cited above and Regan et al. "Diversity of nitrifying bacteria in full-scale cloranimated distribution systems" Water Research, 2003, was among the first to use DNA sequencing to distinguish all the different AOB and NOB that are growing. Some of the names should be pretty familiar: AOBs Nitrosospira, Nm. oligotropha and NOBs Nitrospira, Nitrobacter

So, it seems that AOB and so on can become resistant, or at the very least, as mentioned in the above posts, the chloramine levels are certainly not designed to sterilize a colony of bacteria as large in number as we culture in our tanks and so chloraminated water probably is not going to ruin a fishtank.

All that said, I think I am still going to continue to use my conditioner. It is pretty cheap, and better safe than sorry. However, I am not going to fret if I forget, or if a water change is due up and I haven't been to the LFS lately to get a new bottle.

Oh, and of course, I will now be nice and worried about our water supply.

 

[dapellegrini]

I suspected something similar. Great info andywg!

 

[andywg]

I can't take any real credit, a friend did all the legwork, I just re-post his efforts.

 

[gu2high]

When I was a beginner 13 years ago, I didn't know to use declorinator on tap water. All fishes died within several hours. After this hard lesson, I have always use the declorinator when do pwc or set up a new tank.

 

[dapellegrini]

huh. I have been pretty lax since i started (18 years total with FW tanks) and never lost a fish that I attributed to not adding dechlor... Must be something (or the lack of something) in my water...

 

[TomK2]

Well, I had no idea that nitrifying bacteria strains that were resistant to chloramines were proliferating.

As for dechlorinating for chlorine treated water, there have been experienced aquarists who would not use dechlor for water changes of 30% or less. The logic was that chlorine out-gasses fairly rapidly in a well aerated water supply, and your tank would be considered well aerated either from water flow surface agitation or a bubble stone surface agitation. Plus the fact that smaller water changes are also diluted rapidly too. I use a holding tank with an airstone and a heater for 24 hours or more before the water change, so I don't use dechlor. If I were doing water changes without using my holding tank to remove chlorine, I think I would use dechlor to speed chlorine removal from my tank.

As for chloramines, chloramines don't out-gas by aeration. While it is interesting to note that your nitrifying bacteria are likely to dispatch it, can the trace amounts still harm fish? That is a good question. From the web:

"Chloramine is dangerous to fish in that it passes through the membranes of the gills and into the blood stream where it binds with the iron in the red blood cells. This prevents the blood from transporting oxygen, which leads to lethargy and eventually death.
An important fact to note is that chloramine is not removed through reverse osmosis, as it is able to penetrate the membrane." My comment: it passes through kidney dialysis membranes too.

My concern is that chloramine has a similar effect as nitrite and carbon monoxide does, it binds the iron in hemoglobin and limits the oxygen carrying capacity of the fish's blood. I have not yet been able to find out if this binding is irreversible, but in other situations such as carbon monoxide, the effect takes a long time to recover from. Thus, even if chloramine will not harm your nitrifying bacteria, I would still use dechlor to prevent fish exposure to chloramine until I learned for certain that the lower amounts the fish would be exposed to during smaller water changes are not harmful. As noted before, the dechlorinators are inexpensive, so that the cost does not seem to be too great for the potential benefit.

 

[farmgirl]

I'm cruising throught the posts, and one post caught my eye...at the end of it dapellegrini claims to not use declorinator!

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=91585

Does anyone else do this? Is it possible he's using a product for some other effect but it's a dechlorinator too?

As you probably read, I do not use a dechlorinator, because of the well.
I don't have to "think" if I am on well or not, because the thing is in our back yard. It is great for lack of added chemicals, but talk about hard water!!!!!! I'm finding that I have to be very careful about calcification on the tank, & having such a high mineral content makes for interesting growths such as algae. The fish seem to thrive in though!!! It just takes a little extra time in scrubbing the glass frequently.

 

[SparKy697]

Something worth mentioning about water treatment in a municipal facility:

I have been in quite a few plants and have yet to find one that feeds chloramine. In my experience, chlorine or sodium hypochlorite (bleach) is used as the primary disinfectant throughout the purification process to the level of 2-3 ppm. At the end of the plant just before the water leaves, ammonia is added to bind with the chlorine and create chloramines. Chloramines are not as effective of disinfectant as chlorine is but they last much longer in the system. Samples are taken daily at key points in the system and incubated for total coliform bacteria. If any are found the offending portion of the system is flushed and re-chlorinated if need be.

I would not stop drinking water for fear of bacteria just yet.


I would suggest the purchase of a TOTAL chlorine test kit. Not a FREE chlorine test kit. We test our water for minute amounts of other things why do we assume that our water is free of chlorine just because we put a few drops of some chemical in it?

 

[BillD]

I don't use chlorine remover, but my cold water passes through a carbon cannister filter which rmoves a large part of it, but not all. The chlorine level in my tap water tends to be above 3ppm. By comparison, I shoot for 1 ppm to 1.5 ppm in my swimming pool. However, a few things are worth noting here. Chlorine is a powerful oxidizer. It reacts virtually instantly with any organic material it makes contact with. So, while it will outgass from agitated water, this is not what happens when you add it to a tank that is established. Within minutes it will be "netralized" by doing what it was put in the water for.
I tested this by taking a portion of tank water, and adding an equal amount of tap water with a chlorine level in excess of 3ppm, (the limit of my kit is 3 ppm). The immediate reading was reduced to .5ppm, and within 5 minutes, the reading was 0 ppm. The chlorine did not outgas, but rather was "burned up" by oxidizing organics. I was alerted to this being the case, by Joe Gargas, a former, regular contributor to FAMA magazine. At the time of our converastion in a local Big Al's, he was the new director of R&D for Wardley. There is a downside, still, as he pointed out, and that is the formation of tri-methyl halides, by the chlorine reacting with the organics. TMH compounds are believed to be carcinogenic.
I still believe that dechlor is not necessary for small water changes, but their is no harm in using it. I have personally not seen a down side to what I'm doing, and in fact, I recently heard that a local breer of championship guppies is adding some bleach to his tanks. I will confirm this next month, but can't verify that at this point.

 

[Ichthyologist]

So long as my water change is not exceeding 30%, I never use a dechlorinator. The water system here does use chloramine, too. There is nothing wrong with a low dose of chlorine or chloramine -- in fact, I promote its use to clear up some bacterial diseases in fish like gill disease.

 

[Argblarg]

I did my regular 30% water change then went to go watch television. About 45 minutes later I realized I had forgot to put in my dechlorinator. I ran into the room and every single fish in the tank was at the surface gasping for air. I threw in some Prime and lowered the water level again to get it churned up quickly and the fish were back to normal within a few minutes.

After that experience there is no way I will ever forget to add dechlor again. I have no idea how some of you with cholorinated/chloraminated water say you don't use anything. Either my levels are high or yours are low.