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Water Conditioners?

s1ren

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I've been using water conditioners (AmQuel, Reptisafe, NovAqua, Aqua+, etc.) for my fish and amphibian tanks for years, and it never once ocurred to me to wonder HOW they work. Maybe that makes me stupid, I have no idea. *g*

Can someone explain to me exactly HOW those things remove chlorine (et al) from tap water?
 

Abrahm

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Water conditioners that act on chlorine use Sodium Thiosulfate which reacts with diatomic chlorine (Cl2) which is corrosive and toxic to produce ionic chlorine (Cl-) which is non-toxic. This is the chlorine that would be in your water if you added table salt as sodium and chlorine are released into ions.

As for what happens to chloramine... I do not know.
 

Jennewt

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According to an article in Skeptical Aquarist, sodium thiosulfate will "neutralize" both chlorine and chloramine (i.e., break Cl2 into Cl-). In the case of chloramine, however, that still leaves you with ammonia, which isn't something you want to put into your tank. So the products that claim to neutralize chloramines (including all the products you listed, Siren) also have another component that also detoxifies the ammonia, but it doesn't really "remove" it. The ammonia is still there in some form, and adds to the nutrient load of the tank. Unfortunately, pet products aren't required to list ingredients, so it's hard to really know what they are doing chemically.
 

John

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I've seen a few sites claim that the ammonia (NH3) is turned into ammonium (NH4+) but this can't be the full story because in water NH4+ is in a very biased equilibrium with NH3 (i.e. most of the NH4+ isn't NH4+ but NH3). Even ammonium hydroxide solution that I used in the lab is in reality 9x% ammonia gass dissolved in water. I would imagine that there's a counter ion to keep the ammonia protonated (perhaps the thiosulfate ion).
 
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