Any DIY Water Conditioner?

[thekoimaiden]

Originally Posted by tanseattle

If you have Koi, koi farms use sodium thiosulfate. The price is $5.50 for 500g bottle that make 10 gal solution to treat 250,000 gal tap water.

I don't understand what my small koi pond (4000 gal) has to do with Koi farms most of which are multimillion gallon operations. They need to use the most concentrated stuff to save money (koi are already expensive enough ). Unless you are running an operation with thousands of gallons, I don't think you will save that much money in the long run. I'm with Geomancer. The money is worth the work I would save in the long run. But hey, it's your time and your money.

[TheCrabbyTabby]

+1 on buying conditioner from the store. Making it might be more costly than anything and you might kill your fish in the process. Better safe than sorry.

[mattoboy]

Just let your water sit for 24 hours before-hand.

[TheCrabbyTabby]

Letting the water sit isn't effective enough. Heavy metals simply don't evaporate from the water.

[MrVampire181]

R/O water is pure, distilled water. $150 for a decent unit and takes awhile to fill a trash can but it removes EVERYTHING from your water. To the point where you need to add a few buffers, AQ/rock salt, IAL, and maybe some conditioner.

[TheCrabbyTabby]

Isn't that distilled water a bit acidic for fish?

[Aahnay]

Hmm, I just did a google for 'make your own dechlorinator' and found several answers. I just read the first one from 2003. They do use it and there was a recipe there =). One said to share it with your friends, because one drop makes one gallon of product. wetmanNY said that on Aquaria central.

He also linked another site with recipes in his post there. And another MP said, 'Actually, 1 drop of 10% (not 1%) Sodium thiosulfate solution per gallon of water will neutralize 1 ppm of chlorine'

So, its doable =)

(i hope i did the other site info correctly, no urls)