Information for fellow fish
hobbyist, just so you know that our PUB uses
Chloramines instead of chlorine to treat our
water
Find out more from:
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_chlorine.htm
Frequent
weekly or bi-weekly water changes are an important part of keeping
a fish tank healthy and stable. Over time waste products
accumulate. And when water is lost to evaporation, the minerals and
waste products are left behind, increasing their concentration over
time. Also, the nitrification process (The filter converting
ammonia into nitrite into nitrate) will slowly decrease the water's
buffering capacity. If the buffering capacity is depleted, the pH
can crash very quickly. Water changes help remove the bad stuff,
and help replenish the tank water's buffering
capacity.
When
adding tap water to a tank for water changes, several things should
be done to make sure that you don't shock the fish. First of all,
the temperature of the replacement water should be close the same
temperature as the tank water. Second, and just as important: The
water must be chemically safe for the fish.
If
you get your tap water from a commercial water system, that water
is treated to make sure it's safe for human consumption. The water
is cleaned, and filtered. Then, chemicals are added to the water to
prevent anything harmful from growing in the water while it's in
the pipe leading to your home. Until recently, most water treatment
facilities used Chlorine to kill off any organisms in the water.
The small dose of chlorine is safe to drink, but many people notice
the slight chlorine odor. One problem water treatment plants have
with chlorine is that it's unstable, and easily dissipated from the
water. This means that the treatment plants need to put in higher
levels of chlorine, so that they can be sure that some will remain
in the water when it reaches your home. Recently, water systems
have started treating tap water with chloramine instead of
chlorine. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine and ammonia. It's
much more stable than chlorine. It won't dissipate from the water
as easily, and it isn't as likely to combine with other chemicals.
But, chloramine isn't as good at killing off the microorganisms in
the water as chlorine, so higher levels of chloramine are often
used. Typically, water treatment plants use about 1 ppm of
chloramine.
All
this hard work and chemistry is important to keep people healthy.
But, the same chemicals which keep people safe can be VERY toxic to
fish. Adding tap water with chlorine or chloramine to a tank can
kill off fish quickly. It can also kill off the bio-filter bacteria
that keep your tank healthy and happy. So, this water must be made
safe for the fish and tank. How do we do this? There are several
common approaches, and their effectiveness varies depending on
whether your local water treatment plant uses chlorine or
chloramine.
Just for your information, a
Anti-Chlorine DOES NOT REMOVE Chloramines from the
water.
For the safety of your fishes,
it is best to use an Anti-Chlorine and Anti-Chloramines. I like to
use API or AquaSafe + (Need to reconfirm the AquaSafe brand as I
remember it as AquaSomething +)
API is very expensive and
AquaSafe is a cheaper alternative and they do sell in bulk
pack for big tanks