Water Ager - What's your pick?

[skoom]

Just wondering what water ager people prefer and maybe some pros and cons.

I use stress coat.... what do other people think of it? I seem to like things that come out of Aqua pharmaceuticals...

[flukes]

I use ACN only because of the concentration and i havent had a problem with it for the time i have been keeping all aquarium fish.

[Proteus]

Water Ager ACN plus I have a few 2L AquaPlus bottles lying around

[sunshinediscus]

I don't have cloramines in my tapwater so there is no need for neutrilizers, clorine is very easy to remove without having to add anything. Just use activated carbon in the treatment tank if clorine is all you have, it works out way cheaper especially if you have heaps of water to treat.

Rod

[weird]

Have been using seachem prime, but looking at a less expenisive alternative ! As long as it is just as good.

[Proteus]

Rod, if only we were that lucky here in Sydney...

aside from Chlorine, there is Chloramine, Copper and the other goodies they dose the water with due to the quality issues we have asa result of the low water table in the dams

[mtchye]

Yeah over here in Perth we sometimes have to contend with heavy metals too, so stuff that binds it like Prime etc are the go...

I use Seachem SAFE and dissolve it into a Prime concentration. It works out much cheaper and as I've heard some horror stories about ACN I guess I'll just stick with SAFE/Prime...

[Chris McMahon]

I don't have cloramines in my tapwater so there is no need for neutrilizers,

Are you sure Rod? I thought Brisbane water used chloramines.

Check out BCC's water site.

Water for home aquariums
Brisbane Water uses chloramine to disinfect water for drinking purposes. This is toxic to aquatic life.

You need to remove all traces of chloramine when using tap water in your aquarium. You can do this by:

boiling the water for 10 minutes and letting it cool to room temperature, or
ageing and exposing water to sunlight for at least two days, or
buying de-chlorination agents from aquarium shops

BTW re: oringinal poster - I'm on the Gold Coast, which uses chlorine, and use ACN.

I've heard some horror stories about ACN

Care to elaborate?

[mtchye]

Sorry I shouldn't have said anything about ACN. All I've heard is based on hearsay and ppl losing fish when switching from Prime to ACN. I should state that I never tested it out nor have I ever used it, I just kept going with Prime because it has worked for me, though ACN seems good value for money.

I guess I'm a little wary since at the LFS I used to work at, alot of the water conditioners, especially the locally manufactured ones, consisted of very low concentrations of the active ingredient and often had to be dosed at higher than recommended dose rates to completely get rid of everything.

Some of these products were mostly NaCl.. and it was your luck whether you got any thiosulphate in the spoonful that you threw into the water.

Theory is that people don't notice since fish can tolerate quite a bit of it in the first place. But then you get mysterious fry and sensitive fish deaths etc..

I guess its better safe than sorry for me, and Seachem has an internationally established reputation.. plus prime and aqua plus and sera aquatan were the only 3 that the shop used to recommend to customers as when tested the recommended dosages did as they advertised.

Then again we didn't have ACN at the time.

I guess all I'm saying is that recomended dosages can make it seem like a product is very economical, but they are not all quoted using the same standards... so you may want to test out on your own tap water what the appropriate dose is to completely rid it of chlorines and chloramines.

In addition to this, some water authorities use a flocculant that has a somewhat toxic heavy metal as a constituent. They do this when water is very murky, i.e. after big rains etc. Apparently this can explain why someone who uses no or an average water conditioner can suddenly experience wierd fish symptoms after a water change. These heavy metals are not easily measurable so I tend to use the types of conditioners that can chelate or bind metal ions to reduce their toxicity, rather than straight thiosulphate products, even if the water does not contain chloramine.

Originally I was a person who did not use any water conditioner at all. The tap water once blasted into the tank and mixed with the tank water did not seem to have a high enough chlorine concentration to do the fish any harm. Many of the fish spawned during the water change and after.

One day after such a water change the fish became listless. Soon a few stopped eating. It was suggested to me that metals in the water could be the culprit and as I dosed the Prime into the water, the fish perked up within the hour. This sort of proved to me that something other than chlorine or chloramine was affecting the fish, since this was a week or two after the water change had been done. It also seems that Prime and products that claim to remove heavy metal toxicity instantaneously fix whatever it is that was distressing the fish. I don't know what it is, as I have no resources to experiment and find out, all I know is I'm now a converted water conditioner user...

Hope that long winded post made some sense! At the very least it may be something to think about next time your fish have any unexplained illness...

Cheers
Vincent

[sunshinediscus]

Hi Chris,

Yes i'm sure i don't have cloromine in my tapwater. Brisbane actually use 2 sources for water and indeed some areas do have cloromines but in my area we use a different water catchment and treatment plant and no cloromine. My water is also softer and lower ph compared to most areas.

Rod