100% water change after about 4½ months??

Gill Passman wrote:
nut wrote:




Don't use any water treatment... so long as the bucket has been sitting
overnight all the chlorine in the water will have evaporated.

Although it is true that Chlorine will disapate naturally if water is
left to stand the same is not true of chloramines. If you water company
uses chloramines in your water it is essential that you use a suitable
water conditioner before adding the water into your tank. Personally, I
use it even though, at the moment, my Water Company does not use
chloramines as I prefer to be able to get the water change task done as
efficiently as possible without having buckets of water hanging around
overnight - but then I have 6 tanks - and the number of buckets required
for a water change on a 130g tank make this quite impractical....also
without checking my water company's website each time I change the water
I never know if they might have changed their policy on adding
chloramines....

Gill

That is an excellent point Gill!!

I am no longer in So Cal, but many water districts down there
(especially) in San Diego use chloramines for city water as they are
much more stable than chlorine, and much of the water in these places
is transported greater distances and stored longer before use.
I would use products such as Prime that removed the chlorine then
neutralized the ammonia by changing the ammonia from NH4 to NH3
(chloramines are chlorine bonded to ammonia), the NH3 is much less
toxic. Standard chlorine removing products will still break the
chlorine from the ammonia and remove the chlorine, but they leave the
ammonia in tact for your bio filter to deal with.
I understand not wanting to add chemicals to remove chlorine, but most
standard chlorine removers are simply Sodium Thiosulfate a relatively
harmless Reducing agent that is safely over dosed (of coarse in with in
reason).

Carl