should i use amquel plus for water changes

[pairenoid]

or do i have to continously buy ro water which is 30 minutes away

I only have nitrates in my tap water, cant get below 40 or 20 ppm

If i use it for a water change, do i just prepare my water normally and add dosage of amquel then put it in my tank? this will reduce nitrate to 0, so if my aquarium is hypothetically at 0 nitrate, my nitrates wont go back to 20-40?

i hear it only lasts 24 hours which confuses me. Saying I never have any nitrates, but have nitrates in my tap, amquel plus will make my end result as having no nitrates ??

[Mr. Crabs]

Depends. If you are keeping live corals and inverts in a reef setup, I wouldn't use anything but RO/DI water...no need for Amquel as the resins strip chloramines.

If it is for a fish only tank, then I would use tap water with Amquel Plus for water changes. I personally prefer Prime, not for any specific reason though. My tap water is pretty good in my area, and being my tank is an FOWLR (Fish only with live rock) I take a 5 gallon bucket, add salt, fill the bucket with tap water, then add twice the recommended dosage of Prime (=2 drops per gallon), and mix for one hour with a power head.

Modern salts mix into water very fast. Some tend to age water overnight to stabilize parameters, but being that I don't keep sensitive corals anymore, an hour of circulating seems to work fine for my needs.

[bavass]

amquel does not get everything out. The best option is to buy an RO/DI unit will save you lots of money

[pairenoid]

thanks mr crab

[tonedogz]

Bavass has it correct between gas, traveling for the water paying for the water and using amquel its costing you far more then a good ro/di unit will cost. It will pay for itself in no time. Also whenever possible its always a good idea to keep the water at least overnight to allow the salt to disolve and the water to stabilize.

[pairenoid]

if i leave it in over night, wouldnt it not work?since its temporary

[tonedogz]

Are you talking about the amquel, if you are you wouldn't be using it anymore since you would have an ro/di unit

[pairenoid]

well i can get a ro unit in the future, but not within 3 months so i would have to be without it for a while

[bavass]

if i am no mistaken Amquel only removes ammonia, and chlorine. But there are a lot of other things in tap water that can be removed with RO/DI. Phostphates, nitrates, tds, silicates etc... all that can cause algae issues later

[pairenoid]

says right on the cover, removes and detoxifies:
ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, chlorine, chloramine

i have amquel PLUS. Look, i know what ro is, i just asked if amquel is real and if it works..i already knew a few people would come in here telling me to buy a ro unit though..

[bavass]

My answer is no its not what u need. I think it detoxifies by removing ammonia. In my opinion its not optimal because it doesn't take out everything you need it to. If you want to use it by all means do so.