# DIY dechlorinator solution



## gabriel_bc

So, poking around on the web I happened to notice that the main ingredient for dechlorinating tap water in most store-bought conditioners is sodium thiosulphate. Sodium thiosulphate works for residual chlorine, but the info on the web is conflicted regarding its effects on chloramine. The good news is that the GVRD only uses chlorine, not chloramine - attested to by the fact that aging GVRD water for one day makes it safe for fish (chloramine takes much longer to dissipate than this). 

So, long story short, I happened to have a jar of sodium thiosulphate. Made up a 10% solution, and based on GVRD documents on residual chlorine, calculated that 0.5 ml of this solution would safely dechlorinate 5 gal of tap water, even if the residual chlorine was at the max allowable level. Excess sodium thiosulphate is harmless to fish unless you massively overdose. 2-3x dosing is fine. 

So, if anyone else wants to make a very inexpensive dechlorinating solution, here's the deal:

100 grams sodium thiosulphate pentahydrate in one litre of water (10% stock solution, store in a dark glass bottle)
0.5 ml of this stock solution will instantly dechlorinate 5 gallons of tap water. 

Works perfectly - and I even torture tested it by making up a 20 gal tank with freshly- dechlorinated water and adding 12 juvenile angelfish straight away - no ill effects at all, and that was several days ago. Since then I'm using it for daily 25% - 50% water changes . When you've got MTS, this is a good way to make life easier!


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## 2wheelsx2

Yep, it works well, but does nothing for chloramine. As you indicated, BC doesn't use chloramines that I know of so it's irrelevant for us. However, I looked into this a while back and in reality, buying a 4 kg package of Seachem Safe by mail order is way cheaper than any local source of Sodium Thiosulphate I could find (my wife is a chemist so has a lot of sources) unless I bought in volumes that were ridiculous.


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## Fish rookie

I bought a very big bucket of this a couple years ago. With daily water changes going on every day since then I still have more than half left. I ordered it in the US and have it shipped to Point Roberts.
I did not make a solution, just drop a few crystals in the water everytime, that is all.


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## fish_r_kewl

To resurrect an old thread (I'm allowed to do this, right?), I also came across this tidbit of information on Sodium thiosulphate and promptly went to work reading up on it. It is apparently used by DIY film photographers (not sure they exist anymore ?). We have chloramine in Mission/Abbotsford water supply, so I wonder, where can people purchase it locally? What quantities? Cost? I found a site online that I can get 1 pound for $4 US plus shipping (not sure yet what that will cost yet?) and not sure either if the CBSA people will allow me to bring white crystals across the border :lol:.(Tropical Fish Information). Also, I saw a post from someone who said you can break the Ammonia-Chlorine bond by adding more chlorine. I took that to mean I can add chlorine bleach to the pail of water and let it sit for a day, like I used to be able to do  .... or I could spring for some consumer grade water conditioner again as I have developed MTS, built a pond and am coming to the end of my 2L bottle of Prime. Has anybody else gone down this road?


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## Kral

Even if it is chloramines letting your water sit in the sun for a day or two should remove all the chlorine depending on how much surface area there is exposed. If you add it to a pond that's a big dilution factor for the chlorine meaning the chlorine ppm may go so low in concentration that your fish won't even notice it and perhaps it may even be used up by some pond scum.


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