Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Right now im thinking ill just have to keep buckets of water sitting around to get rid of chlorine, but will brita filtered water work for fish water? Any cheap dechlorinators that are easy to get in rural USA? Thanka

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Sun and air is all you need

+1 rainwater or time is best

Vitamin C is a dechlorinator, you can get it in bulk as a nutritional supplement:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_ ... orbic+acid

After degassing my town water I have a short length of hose and I slowly siphon the water into the sump. That way the new water gets to mix with the system and there should be reduced shock if trace amounts of the bad stuff are still in the water.

Thanks for the feedback. I will start setting up some buckets of water.

If it's only chlorine in your water and you are only topping up the system then go for it... Just top the system up straight out of the hose. Regular small top ups into a system will not cause any troubles at all.

Well, its just a 20 gallon tank and I get about 4 or 5 gallons of evaporation a week. Would it be ok to introduce that much chlorinated water to my little corydoras?

We have aquariums and I was just keeping the top-up water in a laundry tub for like a day before adding to the tank. A little bit of water added at a time should be fine, but I think you should keep a big container of water around to off gas over a day or two. When I was topping up my system in the basement (we only have chlorine too not chloramine) I kept water in two storage tubs and tried to have it age over at least a couple of days before adding to the system.

sorry to jump in this thread, but i was wandering if Prime or other water conditioner can be used safely for humans to remove chlore and/or chloramines when large water changes are required and keeping water in buckets is not an option.

most of the folks here will tell you to avoid prime.. as will i..
for chlorine, an airline and sun, and a few hours is all you need..
if it's chloramine, then you need to research more, i'd be leaning towards superdosing with chlorine

Thanks for the reply. I am in a condo, and dont have space to keep buckets in the sun for the water being dechloronated. I can put a max of 3 buckets of 5 gallon (filled to 3 gallons only) in my bathtub (no sun). My aquarium is 75 gallons, and i have another one that is 10 gallons (the small one is no problem, as it is for shrimps and water gets toped off only from the 75 gallon tank). On the large one, which i will have 6 fancy goldfish and a bn pleco, i normally do a 40% water change every week, as it is somewhat overcrowded (or not too far from being). I believe some new water is required for the system other than the top offs, but i only had this system for about a year (with 5 goldfish), and havent experimented any other way, and it is heavily planted, but not used for aquaponics other than maybe the first stage of growing the seeds (which is working well). I could be wrong, but maybe about 20% of the city water may have chloromines. I normally use prime.

So what can i do? What are my solutions? Is using Prime worst than non-organic vegetable you buy from the grocery store, and similarly, is it much worst / dangerous than buying organic food?

Thanks in advance.

Whats wrong with prime?

It's bullshit... snake oil.....

It claims to be a wonder product that...



The reality is though... using stuff like Prime... does not remove ammonia... indeed, by breaking the chlorine/ammonia bond... it actually releases ammonia...

By breaking the "bond"... they claim to have "removed the chloromine"...

It does not remove the chlorine... it just gasses off as it would normally with sunlight and bubbling... and chlorine is no where near as dangerous to fish as chloromine...

It does not "remove nitrates"... and the "salts" stimulate the slime coat... in the same way that merely adding sea salt at 1ppt would...

It is said to be "non acidic".... and that's true... in fact it is listed in the MSDS as a pH of 8.0....

And it also has a quite strong redox... oxygen reduction capability....

Use it if you want.... I wouldn't... and I certainly wouldn't pay the cost of the product... for the benefit of the "claims"...

If you're really concerned about chloromins.... use an activated charcoal filter.... it will also break the chlorine/ammonia bond... giving a rise in ammonia.... but it should be short lived and coped with rapidly in a cycled system... just watch your pH/temp values... and don't trust your ammonia readings, as they return a false reading when these products are used...

Contrary to popular belief... activated charcoal WILL NOT remove ammonia...

You can see a further review here... which explains the principle agent within the solution... listed in the MSDS as "an aqueous solution of complexed hydrosulfite salts"...

http://tbas1.wiredtron.com/index.php?topic=149.0

P.S.... I know people who have used Prime.... and killed their fish....

Probably not so much as they used "Prime".... but because of ammonia poisoning....

Even the Seachem site has a blurb that suggests that you'll get a "false" reading for ammonia with test kits after applying "Prime"....



So they actually generate toxic ammonia... by their own admission.... but then... supposedly... convert the ammonia into ammonium...

Which is what they claim to give the false reading.... but most test kits read TAN.... not just ammonia, or ammonium....

But they claim your test results might not be valid after using Prime... so why the bloody hell would you...

Of course they do sell an ammonia test kit... which supposedly correctly reads TAN after using the previous product.... yeah sure...

How long do I need to have my IBC sitting there before I can put fish in? I'm working on the assumption that I can just fill my tank and cycle the system and the chlorine will go by itself. Then I intend to add water by pouring it into the growbed rather than the fishtank.