Sure. I bought a little bag on eBay for $10, it will probably last me 10 years. It came with mixing instructions, too - nice seller!

There is a catch. Or two.

It does a great job of binding plain chlorine. But chloramine = chlorine + ammonia. It binds the chlorine, and leaves behind free ammonia. For me, that's not an issue because I don't have much chloramine in my water. But others have reported measurable ammonia spikes after adding tapwater treated with sodium thiosulphate. And let's not forget that Tom Barr believes ammonia is an algae growth trigger!

Second issue comes up when handling shipped fish. The water they're in is often less than 7.0pH due to CO2 level, and can be laden with ammonia. When you receive them, the natural instinct is to slowly add some fresh water to dilute toxins and acclimate them to your water, and plop in an aerator. The aerator removes CO2 and raises pH, the fresh water raises pH, and when the pH goes over 7.0, ammonia gets many times more toxic. Surprise! Fish which were fine in a sealed bag start keeling over. So you must also add something to bind the ammonia, and the store-bought dechlorinators do the trick.

So, I keep both around. I use store-bought dechlor when ammonia might be an issue. The rest of the time, I use sodium thiosulphate.

Why do I bother with the sodium thiosulphate at all? Ignoring the fact that it's cheap, I have an issue with the commercial dechlor manufacturers continuing to add more ingredients to their products. For example, you can't find my old favorite, Amquel, on the shelves anymore. Now all stores stock is Amquel+, which also neutralizes nitrite and NITRATE. Hey wait, I ADDED that nitrate because my plants WANT it, dammit! Another brand wants to "enhance my fishes slime coat" (yeah, whatever), "remove heavy metals" (like ich meds), "remove iodine" (shrimp need iodine or they die), and "add electrolytes" while it's at it. More mystery ingredients that screw with entirely too many variables in my tank, no thank you.

 

Wow, thanks for a great response!

So, if sodium thiosulfate turns chloramine into chlorine+ammonia, won't all other dechlor products? Or is it that these other products also remove ammonia?

Also, and this is not coming from Tom Barr, I thought I've heard that ammonia is more quickly available to plants than nitrates?

 

So, if sodium thiosulfate turns chloramine into chlorine+ammonia, won't all other dechlor products? Or is it that these other products also remove ammonia?

If they use sodium thiosulphate (ST), they must include a second ingredient to bind ammonia in order to claim chloramine removal.

Novalek's Amquel doesn't use ST at all, it uses sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate, which is effective against chlorine and ammonia. They actually describe how it works here. Kudos to Novalek for that.

Aquarium Pharmaceutical's Ammo-Lock uses "no less than 17% aliphatic amine salts." If you ask them exactly what that means, they won't tell you; it's a trade secret.

Also, and this is not coming from Tom Barr, I thought I've heard that ammonia is more quickly available to plants than nitrates?

I've heard that too. But neither plants nor biofilter can process all the ammonia instantly. Periodic ammonia spikes from water changes might not actually contribute to algae growth as much as the constant source of ammonia from the fish. I just stated the *possibility* of a problem. You decide whether it's significant, and whether you want to remove that variable or not.

 

Seachem's Prime is very cost effective. With free shipping being offered it's almost a steal. 1 ml treats 10 gallons of water both chlorine and chloramine.

 

Yep. But it still does all that other stuff I don't want or need, and still has the "mystery" ingredients. From Seachem's MSDS:

"Principal ingredients are bisulfites and hydrosulfites, aqueous solution, buffered at pH 8, with ameliorating ingredients. Reducing agents."

Who's got free shipping? Maybe they carry original Amquel.

 

I just found this page which gives a decent summary of all the different dechlor products.

 

Drs. Foster and Smith

 

DC, thanks so much for that link, very informative (*saves to favorites*)! Kudos for you! Looks like I need to make a shopping list for Drsfostersmith!!!

 

After some reading up, I'm very dissapointed that Prime removes those goodies like nitrate and nitrite. It's easily the most cost-effective, commercially available treatment for chlorine/chloramine. The next best product that i've found is Tetra's AquaSafe, which costs roughly $0.07 to treat 10 gallons. (Prime is like $0.026!)

BTW, DrsFosterSmith.com is only offering free shipping for orders >$60.

 

At normal dosing levels Prime has no effect on nitrates. You have to dose very high levels for it to have an effect on nitrates.

 

At normal dosing levels Prime has no effect on nitrates. You have to dose very high levels for it to have an effect on nitrates.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that! I did a little checking to see if I could verify that, and it appears that my concerns - at least about nitrates - were unnecessary.

I tried to find some supporting info on Seachem's Prime and wasn't successful. So I looked up Kordon's Amquel+ instead, since it's a similar product in that it claims to remove the same substances, and Kordon is good about providing detailed info.

According to Kordon, the recommended dose for chlorine removal alone is 1tsp per 100gal, and removes:

Chlorine - 3ppm

For all other purposes, they recommend a dose of 1tsp per 10gal. That's a tenfold larger dose, so I'm dividing their numbers by 10 to keep this in the perspective of what effects it has on a tank when used for dechlorinating tapwater:

Ammonia - 0.12ppm
Nitrites - 0.2ppm
Nitrates - 1.2ppm

The actual effect on a tank will be further reduced based on how much water is actually changed.

For example, if nitrates are at 10ppm, and a 50% water change is performed *without* Amquel+, nitrates will then be:

(10ppm*0.5) = 5.0ppm

And the same water change *with* Amquel+ at dechlorinating dosage:

(10ppm*0.5)-(1.2ppm*0.5) = 4.4ppm

The difference, 0.6ppm of nitrate, isn't a significant loss.