About Chloramine

If you get your aquarium water from a commercial water system (tap water), that water is treated to make sure it's safe for human consumption. The water is cleaned, and filtered. Chemicals are then added to the water to prevent anything harmful from growing in the water while it's in the pipe leading to your home. Until recently, most water treatment facilities used Chlorine to kill off any organisms in the water. This small dose of chlorine is safefor human consumption.

The problem water treatment facilities have with chlorine is that it's unstable, and easily dissipates from the water. This means that the treatment plants need to put in higher levels of chlorine, so that they can be sure that some will remain in the water when it reaches your home. Recently, water treatment plants have started treating tap water with chloramine instead of chlorine. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine and ammonia. It's much more stable than chlorine, does not dissipate from the water as easily and it isn't as likely to combine with other chemicals. But, chloramine isn't as good at killing off the microorganisms in the water as chlorine, so higher levels of chloramine are often used. Typically, water treatment plants use about 1 ppm of chloramine.

Adding chlorine and chlormines to our drinking water is very important to keep people healthy. But, the same chemicals which keep us safe can be VERY toxic to fish. Adding tap water with chlorine or chloramine to a tank can quickly kill off fish. It can also kill off the nitrifying bacteria that keep your tank stable and healthy. So, it is imporatnt to remove chlorine and chloramines from your aquarium water. There are several common approaches, and their effectiveness varies depending on whether your local water treatment plant uses chlorine or chloramine. If you don't know which your water system uses, contact them and ask.

The simplest and most effective way to remove chlorine and chlormaines from your water is using chemical dechlorinators.

There are many products sold for aquarium use that are specifically intended to remove chlorine. Fritz Chlorine Remover and FritzGuard are two of these. They all include Sodium Thiosulfate, which reacts with the chlorine (or the chlorine portion of the chloramine) to form harmless chloride ions. The chlorine is completely and totally removed. This reaction happens instantly. The tap water doesn't need to be mixed with the dechlorinator for any amount of time before adding it to the tank. It's safe to just add the dechlorinator as you add the water into the tank.

There is one potential problem if your water is treated with chloramine. As stated above, the dechlorinator reacts with the chlorine portion of the chloramine. The chlorine is eliminated, leaving the ammonia free in the water. As you hopefully know, ammonia is toxic to fish, even in low levels. So, if you use a simple dechlorinator that only contains sodium thiosulfate, you are solving one problem (chlorine) and creating a new problem (ammonia).

Luckily for aquarists, FritzPet has a solution. Fritz chlorine/chloramine remover and FritzGuard include chemicals to convert the ammonia into harmless ammonium.

Fritz Pet Products differ from similar products in that they have higher concentrations, meaning you use less to do more.