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Chlorinated Water Change

919 Views 11 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  Couesfanatic
Yeah you read it right. I was changing the water in the nano on my desk after work and forgot to de-chlorinate the water. At lunch I filled my gallon jug took it back to my desk and placed the heater in it to bring up to temp. Well five oclock hits and I changed about .5 gallon. After getting home noticed the Prime still in the pocket of my lunch cooler. Pretty sure I didn't use it. :icon_redf

There is a bag of carbon in the tank but what are the odds Monday when I show up I find the fish dead? And what effect would it have on the plants. Over 25 years of fish keeping I have never had this experience,

BTW its a 2 gallon nano.
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I have topped off with up to 10% of the tank volume, no problem.
But a greater %? I would not trust doing that. Half a gallon in a 2 gallon tank does not sound good. :-(
There some things not mentions but may help to give you hope. One is the question of chloramine or chlorine used to treat the water. If you are lucky enough to have only chlorine in the water, the five hours will have let a fair amount of it gas off. You may be able to judge the difference when you drink water. If it smells strong of chlorine, it quite likely is rather than chloramine. One advantage of using chloramine from the treatment angle is that it does not gass off nearly as quickly. They can add less at the start and still keep the chlorine residual readings up to required levels.
If your supplier is large enough, there will be a consumer confidence report that tells which is used to treat the water. Larger companies are required to post it online. A quick search might tell you a lot about the water.
I've filled tanks with just plants with straight tap water and they've been fine.


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Thanks guys for the responses. We'll see Monday. I will let you know the outcome. The water does have that pool like chlorine smell when you drink it.

I would have went back to the office but security followed me out of the building and it pretty much takes and act of Congress to get back in after hours much less a weekend.

Lets keep out fingers crossed the two little Glowlights are still alive when I get there.
As Diana said it depends on the %, the larger % water change the worse things will be.

Fish might die, plants usually respond with curled up leaves and patches of damaged/dead tissue if there is a lot of chlorine.
well good news. The two little guys are alive and kicking. Plants look good. In fact the fish colors are better than when I left.
When we get down to it, many of us have done somewhat the same thing and found chlorine is not the big boogie man that we fear all our lives! Not the best thing to do but how many of us run a perfect ship all the time?
Lucky. Fish often die from chlorinated water changes. It depends on the dose they get. At proper standard chlorine levels fish will die, however, the further you get from the water plant the less chlorine is present in the water supply and the better chance they have of surviving.
It is entirely possible that I did add the Prime but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Just glad there were no ill effects.
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