Water conditioners for shrimps

Neonshrimp · Post by **Neonshrimp** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:59 am

Thanks Shady for sharing your experience. It is very informative and sorry to hear about your loss of amano shrimp. If you could recommend a conditioner for effectiveness and value what would it be?

ToddnBecka · Post by **ToddnBecka** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:17 am

R/O is fine as long as the water doesn't contain chloramine, but it will not remove chloramine. The bad thing is that the water treatment facilities may use it occaisonally, and don't notify the public concerning what they do use to treat the water. Something like this could be the reason for unexplained die-offs in established tanks. Removing the chlorine from chloramine leaves ammonia, which would be broken down by the biological filter. If the water wasn't tested soon enough to detect the temporary spike, the cause would never be suspected.

The Fisherman · Post by **The Fisherman** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:05 am

Generally I use R/O water or my well water, so for R/O I don't condition it with anything but RO Right.

For well water, I don't do anything to it. there is no Chlorine or anything in it.

-John

Neonshrimp · Post by **Neonshrimp** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:09 am

Do you think it is as safe to use our water conditioners when Chloramines are not present vs. when they are present?

Shady · Post by **Shady** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:54 am

Neonshrimp wrote:Thanks Shady for sharing your experience. It is very informative and sorry to hear about your loss of amano shrimp. If you could recommend a conditioner for effectiveness and value what would it be?

I use Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Tap Water Conditioner if I am treating tap water. It is very concentrated, and does what 99.9% of people who treat tap water want to do: detoxify chlorine and heavy metals. Not too many water conditioners do much more than that...despite the claims of ammonia removal, organics removal, etc. THe claims regarding chloramine removal are poorly substantiated for most water conditioners.

But I still stick by removal over adding detoxifiers, and DI or RO are the only way to really do this. For this I use the Tap Water Filter (ion exchange resin). My tap water has almost imperceptible GH and zero KH, but a lot of chlorine and copper. I think the copper is what was killing my Amanos...even though the water conditioner detoxifies it. I also have a UV sterilizer, and they are purported to break down the chelating agents that bind heavy metals...so maybe that's it. Either way, DI is the only way I REALLY get nice plants, happy shrimp, and low algae.

I actually work in algae research now, so it's interesting seeing what algae my Amano's prefer...maybe I'll post my findings.