dechlorinators

[morrie]

hi all
am new here and am looking to set up a small sytem on my deck- i have lots of questions and have been trawling through the threads for acouple of days

i'm planning on using my 4 foot (165 litre- ish) tank
i'm in brisbane and they are pumping in chloramines - so i would like to use dechlorinators - the one i use for my aquariums is prime - below is what they had to say about it's "food safeness"

Because our products have not been approved by
either the Food and Drug Administration or the
Environmental Protection Agency, they are not recommended
for use with anything that is intended for human
consumption. Though there is no guarantee that this could
pose any health issue, we do not want to take any chances.
We can only guarantee the safety of the products when
used as directed, so I would not even recommend it for
feeding your other pets either.

? are they just covering themselves legally ??

i know prime is a bit more complex than some dechlorinators and binds nitrites and nitrates -so it is probably usefull for a AP system

what do others use on small systems - i don't really have the space to have large volumes of water sitting around in the sun (i have young kids too)

cheers
ian

[Dufflight]

binds nitrites and nitrates. If it binds these then how will your plants be able to use them.

Do you have access to rain water.

[morrie]

whoops ! typo- your right - i did mean to say binding nitrites and nitrates would be NOT useful to aquaponics

does any one use dechlorinators at all??? - if so what types

i do have a 3000 litre tank which we use for our animals and garden but the water is very soft and acidic - i would have to add a buffer and raise ph to use it for fish

(i did use some collected rain water to do a water change once in my youth and wipped out a whole tank of fish - naive to think "nice clean rainwater" would be good for them )

cheers
ian

[peterj]

The only ingrediant of a dechlorinator worth worrying about is Sodium thiosulfate. Sunlight & evaporation will knock out dissolved chorine gas but chloramine is more persistent. If you use a basic dechlorinator it will bind the chlorine and release ammonia into the water column. It's worth giving the plants and microbes time to settle into a new setup before adding fish, and stocking gradually is a good idea too. I breed a variety of fish in outdoor tubs (with a lot of aquatic plants) and don't dechlorinate for top ups that are less than 20% of the overall volume - sunlight and plants seem to work fine for this volume.

[jack@badflas]

Products like Prime and Amquel+ convert the chlorine and chloramine into non-hazardous compounds that can still be used by plants. If you have chloramine, don't fool around. Use one of those products.