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ExReefer
03-06-2012, 02:26 PM
I spent some time searching and saw a comment from Bill P. about how he added more SAFE during WC's in the winter months. That is very interesting. I'm starting to wonder more and more if that's the real issue with WC's in the winter vs. summer. Sure, there are more microbubbles, but if my local water company is increasing chloramines during the winter and I don't adjust the amount of SAFE to compensatate, I can understand why my discus have issues every winter unless I age my water. In the summer, I never age the water and the discus thrive. I know Bill P. never aged his water unless it was on fry tanks.

TURQ64
03-06-2012, 03:30 PM
winter season's in many locale's is where the whole chlorine/chloramine gig begin's..more molds, etc. in the water in colder months...therefore, more of it also in the more dense cold molecules..

ExReefer
03-06-2012, 03:39 PM
Good point! Maybe my local water does not even have chloramines in the summer.

discuspaul
03-07-2012, 04:26 PM
First, I'd like to say I have little knowledge of chemistry or biology, and find chemical reports on chlorine, chloramines and ammonia difficult to follow and understand, at best.
But the following may be of interest re:this thread.

The whole matter of North American water system authorities in many areas adding chloramines, or more chloramines than normal, to their systems in winter, can present a real issue for discus-keepers.
I recently read a thread on another forum where discus-keepers in Kansas City for example, had experienced very distressing, lethal results to their discus, due to the amount of chloramines used in the system there over the winter months.

It appears that even those using Prime or Safe as a water conditioner were not any more protected than those using other conditioners that dealt only with chlorine & chloramines, but not ammonia. Even doubling up on their usual dosage of Prime was not an answer in some cases.
In K.C. it seems the water out of the tap is near 8.0 or so, (at least for some) and that the eventual breakdown of chloramines (which rendered them back to chlorine + ammonia), left the residual ammonia at significantly high levels.
While the conditioners (even Prime - which would have dealt with at least some of the ammonia) neutralized the chlorine, the pH of around 8.0 in the tanks created a situation where the ammonia was nevertheless at significant levels to have lethal toxicity to discus.

A good majority of us do not have that problem, fortunately, as our pH is in the 6.0 to 7.5 range, where the acidity of the water would render the ammonia to ammonium, at safe, non-toxic levels in those pH ranges, depending of course on ppm's of ammonia. Those that had a pH of say 7.8 or higher did not enjoy that non-toxicity.

Subsequently, I read a very interesting article to this effect which was a google link to
the skepticalaquarist.com forum. The article was submitted by wetman (username,I presume)
in March 2011, and was entitled "Dealing with Chlorine and Chloramines".
I found the link simply by googling - 'chloramines - chlorine + ammonia'.
The phrase that said it all for me was simply, quote:
"In acidic water, the ammonia released would largely be ionized to it's non-toxic form, ammonium".

ExReefer
03-07-2012, 04:54 PM
About a month ago I did a large WC and woke up the next morning with all my discus dark, huddled together near the water surface. They had scratches all over their bodies from rubbing against objects in the tank. They also had serious swim bladder issues. It was horrible. They looked half dead and it happened overnight. Looking back on that now, I'm certain it was a water quality issue. It happened way too quickly to be anything else. I'm guessing that I didn't use enough SAFE on that particular WC and I'm betting the chloramines were unusally high that day. Luckily, all but one them fully recovered.

I'm still puzzled by this winter water issue and no longer believe it's just about microbubbles. I think it's more about a high concentration of chloramines and perhaps to your point, the PH as well. I was seeing symptoms similar to flukes. Flashing and darting around. Fish just looking uncomfortable. Maybe my local water source increases chloramines in the winter? I read my local 2011 water report and it does not break out chloromine levels. Plus the report is annual report with a high/low range so I'd never know if levels were higher in the winter.

All I know is since I started running my tap water through my RO unit (without the membrane), my fish are acting completely normal. My theory is the carbon blocks (I'm using two of them) do reduce the chloramines to a lesser amount and the SAFE does the rest. The job of the carbon blocks is too prepare the water for the RO membrane. I'm skipping the membrane because I don't need RO water. I still use SAFE just in case the carbon blocks don't completely eliminate all the chlorine and chloramines. I pretty sure they don't. Perhaps if I used catalytic carbon I could skip the SAFE, but I'm not going to risk it.

I know Bill P. ran his tap water through a carbon filter and then added SAFE to the aquarium as well.

discuspaul
03-07-2012, 05:31 PM
Yes, the article I mentioned does deal with the benefits of exposing the chloramines to carbon. And from what I've read recently, quite a number of municipal water systems are adding greater amounts of chloramines to their water than they did in past years.
It was suggested that some water authorities were adding even more chloramines than wouldld normally be recommended by health and sanitation experts as being adequate for sanitation purposes.
No problem with respect to human consumption, but problematic for aquarists.

ExReefer
03-17-2012, 10:32 AM
UPDATE: I started running directly from the tap again and added double dose of SAFE (because my tank refills much faster this way). The fish responded well. In summary, I need to use higher doses of SAFE in the winter months. I may just use double doses of SAFE year round because I'll never know when my water company is going to increase chloramines.

cjr8420
03-17-2012, 10:56 AM
UPDATE: I started running directly from the tap again and added double dose of SAFE (because my tank refills much faster this way). The fish responded well. In summary, I need to use higher doses of SAFE in the winter months. I may just use double doses of SAFE year round because I'll never know when my water company is going to increase chloramines.
thats what i do been okay for over a year using prime and just recently with safe.

jimg
03-17-2012, 12:59 PM
water plants do not add more of anything in the winter or any other time. what they do add, by the time it gets to us is minute. they are under extremely strick us guidelines. there are very few if any occasions when a dose is exceeded.
The problem is the temp of the water and the d o and the micro bubbles. some water gets effected, some don't, all depends on what is in the water.
most of the winter problems are from micro bubbles. anything in the water will attach to the outer surface of the bubbles then the bubbles get on the fish gills and do a few things like over oxygenate, burn, block o2 etc.
unless you age, there is little you can do. jmo anyway