Maintaining an aquarium takes a lot of hard work but the end result is worth all of the effort. If you are new to keeping an aquarium, there are a lot of things you need to know such as understanding the specific conditions needed for specific aquatic organisms and the equipment that will help the water to be clean and safe.
One of the maintenance tasks you will need to do is adding aquarium water conditioner. As you will be filling the tank with tap water that is chemically treated, the conditioner will make the water safe for fish and other aquatic animals to live in. Tap water is treated with chloramine or chlorine to keep it safe from harmful bacteria making it safe for us to drink it, bathe in it etc. But these levels of chloramine can be too toxic to fish and it can also be detrimental to aquarium filtration.
There are different conditioners that are used to keep fish in healthy water. Some of the most popular water conditioners are dechlorinators. These will remove chlorine from the water. There are also chloramine neutralisers that can remove ammonia, chlorine and some heavy metals from the water. You will also come across complete conditioners that can neutralise ammonia, chlorine and take care of heavy metals as well.
There are so many brands that you can choose from. You always need to read the instructions when you are using these items. There are certain warnings that you will need to heed when it comes to usage. There will always be a small dosage required at a time for a certain volume. So you need to have an idea of the volume of water in the tank to figure out exactly how much conditioner to put. Once you have treated the aquarium, you will not need to treat the entirety again. When you are adding new water, only the new volume of water is to be treated with the conditioner when you’re carrying out partial water changes. The instructions will let you know how long to wait for the dechlorination to complete.
Many of the water conditioners you see on the market are fairly affordable. There are also speciality conditioners that you will see on the shelves but these will generally not be necessary for the aquarium. It will also raise the cost of maintaining the aquarium so a basic conditioner will work perfectly. Water conditioners are only needed if the water comes from a public water supply. But if the source of water is from a well or any other natural source that is not treated with chemicals, you may not need to use water conditioner.
However, before you start using your well water, it is recommended to test the water for any heavy metals as the dechlorinators can remove them. Dechlorinators are not harmful to fish but there can be some danger when you use them in poorly oxygenated tanks. The dechlorinator can use up the oxygen in the tank when it is removing the chlorine from water so you have to be careful when using it.