tap H20 Q

[SE18]

Q: I read that tap water is bad but why? One book says it has salts in it (The Practical Rock & Water Garden, by Peter Robinson) and other sources mention chlorine.

Q: Is it true that after a period of time, the clorine dissipates on its own? If so, how long does it take?

Reason I'm asking these questions is b/c I'm thinking about filling a few buckets of water and using the water to top off occasionally due to evaporation loss.

Incidentally, my float valve arrived but it was missing the valve stem. If you put it together without the valve stem, it makes a neat water gun, as the water shoots about 100 feet through the orofice. Trough-O-Matic, the company, is mailing me the parts for free. I just got off the phone with them.

Incidentally (#2) a few very tiny tadpoles survived the dousing they got with tap water, I discovered yesterday. They escaped into a little pool below the drain pipe, upstream from where the hose was left on for 3 days. Now just waiting for the water bill.

Later.

Dave V

 

[koidaddy]

City water has chlorine and chloramines, both toxic to your pond life, well your plants wouldn't be effected as much but it still has an effect on them. It depends on a few things as far as how long to let the water sit.If you fill the buckets with a shower type spray, where the water is coming in contact with more air, would be best. If you put the hose in the bottom of the container to fill it will take longer for the chlorine to dissapate. Usally after a few days you are good to go. Hotter water will work faster. Why not add dechlorinator to the water?

 

[SE18]

thanks; didn't know about dechlorinator. Does it take care of chloramines as well?

 

[koidaddy]

I know Prime does. Thats what I use. One capefull(thier small) does 50 gallons.

 

[SE18]

thanks

 

[Shdwdrgn]

My understanding is that chlorine will evaporate out of your water in 24 hours. Chloramine will never evaporate out. And I've been told that each city will use one or the other, but not both.

If you have chlorine, low doses should not hurt the fish. I try to keep any top-offs to only about an inch of water a day (which is probably less than 5% of my pond volume), giving the chlorine time to evaporate from the pond -- however when I originally filled my pond, I used a good dechlor and was able to move my fish into the pond within a few hours.

 

[addy1]

I have a constant water feed to my arizona pond, the tap water was not treated. The water feed was set up to top off the pond, the fish never were bothered by that amount of water going in. But a water change need to treat the water.