Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Can I fill my grow bed right away with gravel and untreated tap water, and then use my "tap water conditioner"? Or would I have to treat the tap water first before adding it into my gravel-filled grow bed?

And, what would happen if you use too much tap water conditioner? How much excess would you need to use in order to cause damage to the AP ?

I bought API's tap water conditioner, is it safe for food fish? Their website says "Safe for all aquatic life." but I still want to make sure

http://cms.marsfishcare.com/files/msds/ ... r_2449.pdf

Section 2 - COMPOSITION / INFORMATION ON INGREDIENTS

NAME ------------------CAS RN---------------%
sodium thiosulfate ------7772-98-7 ---------30.2
EDTA tetrasodium ------salt 64-02-8 --------9.8

my thoughts, and I am in no way qualified to answer, but anyway, here goes.

My thoughts are that if there are no fish in the AP system, and you just wanna get started cycling with humonia or substitute, is that by the time you cycle (4 weeks or so), that the chlorine would have degassed from the water.

Aj

Do not use the tap water conditioner. I bought a similar product by Pondcare (I believe they are the same company as API), but the chemical EDTA tetrasodium is the same. If you read further down the MSDS you attached. It states harmful to aquatic organisms.

I have even wrote an email to Pondcare and their response was that none of their products
are suitable for fish meant for human consumption.

I assume you are just starting your system, hence there is no bacteria yet in your growbed. Chlorine can kill off bacteria if they are already present, but if you are just starting your system, there should be no bacteria in your growbed yet.

As AJ said, if you are doing fishless cycling, don't worry about the chlorine. It would have gassed off before you cycle your system. If you intend to add fishes then, I suggest you let the system cycle for 1-2 weeks before adding them. IMO unless you don't mind killing fishes in the process of cycling, it is a lot less stressful doing fishless cycling.

Anyway, good luck.. and get yourself a Freshwater Master Test kit from API as well if you have not already got one, coz the moment you have a problem with your system and post questions on this forum, many people would ask you about your water test... pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Temperature.

aging or outgassing the water works well to get rid of chlorine. If all your tap water has is chlorine, that is great, skip the conditioner.

However, if your water utility uses chloramine to treat the water, you will have to go looking for a food safe conditioner or filter the water before putting it into the system (something like a britta filter will remove chloramine but that is kinda a costly way to prep water for use in a fish tank.)

Okay, what if I am not planning on eating the fish, but instead consuming the plant yields ?

Okay, I went to this website that gives information about a region's water quality, and in my region, this is what I found:

http://www.peelregion.ca/pw/water/quali ... ol-wqr.pdf (Page 4 is a chart)

It said Chloride, but no chlorine or chloramine listed ??

Check with your local waterboard.... nearly all water is "chlorinated" - has chlorine (chloride) added... but may well ALSO have chlorimine added...

Yep, I e-mailed them an hour ago, and I'm still going to call them tomorrow

In any case, at least if nothing has cycled so you are not worried about killing of pre-existing bacteria, I would say go ahead and put the gravel in and fill fish tank with water and start the water pumping around the system. (Just make sure to measure the amount of water the system holds so you will know in case you do need to condition for chloramine.) Anyway, fill it up and start it running. If you find out it is only chlorine, you are good to go, it should be well on it's way to escaped by the time you find out. If you find out it is the nasty chloramine then you know the water volume and can start working on getting whatever you need to treat for it.

Fair comment and suggestion...

Yep, I just called 1 min ago. There is no chloramine in our water. Time to get my hands dirty...

Let the water pump through the system for a couple days to aerate it before you add any ammonia.

It's only 35 gallons of water in total. I ran the aerator in the FT and sump overnight, tested for Chlorine the next day and the reading was 0. Is this rate of removing chlorine from the water sound about right for a small amount of water?

And just to be double sure whether my tap water contains chloramine, I read a thread saying that if you use a de-chlorinizer , and then test for ammonia, you will be able to tell whether there was chloramine in water if you then tested positive for ammonia. Now the question, does it matter what kind of Tap Water conditioner I use? Will all types of tap water conditioners produce ammonia in the water if chloramine was present?

Here is what I did for testing if I have chloramine:

1. Tested water straight from the tap, which tested positive for chlorine.
2. Applied the proper amount of tap water conditioner (the one with the toxic EDTA tetrasodium salt -- no worries I ain't using this water conditioner for my actual AP)
3. Waited 30 minutes.
4. Again, I applied the same amount of tap water conditioner in step #2.
5. I did an ammonia test, in which my API's Freshwater Master Kit gave me a yellow colour; 0 ppm.

So, am I safe?

I'm not expert about dealing with chlorine and such but sounds to me like you have head around things.

Your procedures sound pretty good to me.

I'd say safe and go for it!!!!!

Ya got test kits and know how to use them, that is definitely a step in the right direction too.