Chlorine ReGens old water?

silverado61

Well-Known Member
I just read that you can use chlorine to ReGen old tank water and then use sodium thiosulfate to de-chlorine at it. Is this true? If so, how is the PH balanced out?

Martin A. Moe wrote that he's used this method for years to rear fish.
 

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
ReGen? I haven't heard of this...

I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean to dump a bottle of bleach in the tank though. I'm going to have to research more on this to know anything about it.

sodium thiosulfate is a fancy word for dechlorinator.
 

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
Ah!!! I got it! Duh,...


In fish rearing systems, the main problems is bacterial buildup and fungus, besides the obvious - nitrates and phosphates.

What he is doing is taking out all of the clownfish in a tank and leaving it completely barren, (these vats could be several hundred gallons at a time) and then chlorinating it to kill bacteria, fungus, viruses, etc., then running the water through a filter to get rid of the solids, probably running it through a large skimmer to get rid of DOCs and then dechlorinating it to reuse the saltwater.

In fish only systems, the saltwater just needs to have a certain amount of basic elements for the clowns to grow and thrive - calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, strontium, iodine, boron,... He is re-using the water so that he can cut down on the cost of salt. While this may work for him, I really don't recommend it unless you don't have the means to buy salt. I also don't recommend it for tanks with corals.
 

silverado61

Well-Known Member
That's pretty much what he said in his book.
No, I have no intention of trying it. I just wanted to see if anybody else has heard of this. Even if I decided to breed some years down the road I don't think it would be worth the time and effert.
Thanks Seth.
 

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
I think the idea is to sterilize the water then dechlorinate it.

And Moe was supposed to say the helps with breeding clownfish or something like that.

Of course that begs the question what is the difference between doing that and simply using dechlorinated tap to begin with other then you don't really know the chlorine in the tap water.

All I did was just top off with untreated tap water for ~8 years or so with the tank balanced out with macros. Worked fine with a heavy bioload and easy type corals.


my .02
 

silverado61

Well-Known Member
On the grand scale of things, since he breads fish, I can see why he does it.

On the small scale of things, like me, just seems like a lot of time and effort to save on salt.

Think I'll just leave that to the pros.
 
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