Give it to me straight - is Daro Aqua Chlor any good?

I've been using it from the beginning, but double the dosage because I don't own a chloramine test (next on my shopping list).

My tank has been evaporating at an alarming rate what with 28'C and an airstone. I topped it up with 5L a few hours ago and BAM! Big Baccy Bloom. That suggests it does work (sodium thiosulphate reacts with chloramine to produce ammonia)

Or it doesn't work and I keep hitting the cycle with chloraminated water.

I need answers! Feed me, Seymour!


I guess the bottom line is I need to invest in a proper test kit and a dechlorinator I can trust, but I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks.

 

https://www.hellopeter.com/daro-pet-products

i don't use daro, i used to use tetra aquasafe but the blue colour drives me crazy. since then i have used seachem prime, and then i found seachem safe was way more economical, and now i am trying api pond which is also pretty good

 

Well, that one one-starrer about the dead fish is enough of a smoking gun for me. Onwards!

 

This calls for an experiment. Don't adjust your set!

I don't know why I didn't think of doing it before.

 

SO!

The standard dosage is 3 drops per 4L of water, so I filled a jug with 750ml of water straight from the tap. The first tube on the left is the control, second is 1 drop of Daro AC, third is another drop (so double dosage), fourth another (triple). 30s of mixing inbetween.

The key takeaway is that there is ammonia right out of the tap - less than 0.25ppm but definitely detectable. No amount of AC does anything.

This suggests that Randwater is adding sodium thiosulphate as a treatment stage after chloramine (supposedly it's bad for lead and copper plumbing)

The lack of any result implies that AC doesn't contain sodium thiosulphate (or perhaps anything useful at all), or that there isn't any chloramine left to react with, or that it only contains something that binds/releases free chlorine and won't be known unless I have a test for free and total chlorine.

ETA I made a brainfart on the 750ml . I've had a long day, what's your excuse.

 

No detectable phosphates, so I can lay that worry to rest.

 

Look how cheap this is. Heath Robinson is cackling from the grave....

https://medicolab.africa/shop/health-pain-relief/hypo-sodium-thiosulphate/?attribute_pa_weight=500g