Saying goodbye to Seachem

[HH Morant]

I use Seachem Prime and Safe. They work great to dechlorinate my tap water so I can use it in my aquarium.  I don't believe they do that other stuff that Seachem claims [see my earlier post - "Hold my beer while I detoxify this"].

So I bought 10 pounds of sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate - $24.99 on Amazon.

I have not used it yet. The label says 4 teaspoons neutralizes 1 ppm chlorine in 10,000 gallons of water. So one quarter of a teaspoon neutralizes 1 ppm in 625 gallons.

One quarter of a teaspoon is 17 to 21 crystals, see the pictures below. I did the picture twice because the 1st time I wrote  "ammonia" rather than "chlorine."  The 1st time I measured a quarter teaspoon, I got 21 crystals and the 2nd time I got 17 crystals. At 21 crystals, each crystal dechlorinates about 29.76 gallons. At 17 crystals per quarter teaspoon, each crystal would dechlorinate 36.76 gallons (625 ÷ 17).

I think 10 pounds might be a lifetime supply if I just do the 1 ppm dose. But I understand that some people recommend 4 times the 1 ppm dose to protect against occasional super-chlorination by municipalities. 

Has anyone used this product?

Edited March 5, 2022 by HH Morant

[StevesFishTanks]

Is this effective on chloramine as well?

[Guppysnail]

That is more like 3 lifetime supplies 🤣. Awesome money saver!

edit woke up with no reaction 😍

Edited March 4, 2022 by Guppysnail

[HH Morant]

On 3/4/2022 at 1:25 AM, StevesFishTanks said:

Is this effective on chloramine as well?

Yes, it works on chloramines. The chlorine and ammonia are separated and the chlorine is neutralized. The small amount of ammonia is then processed by your filter.

Sodium thiosulfate is the active ingredient in many commercial dechlorinators sold for the aquarium hobby, although many manufacturers have gone the way of Seachem - don't tell people what is in it and claim it does everything. 

See aquariumscience.org articles regarding dechlorinators. I am not a chemist and he is.

[Biotope Biologist]

Yup we used sodium thiosulfate at large chain pet store to dechlorinate our water. It works. Just make sure to store in a dry place.

[Wrencher_Scott]

On 3/4/2022 at 7:43 AM, HH Morant said:

Yes, it works on chloramines. The chlorine and ammonia are separated and the chlorine is neutralized. The small amount of ammonia is then processed by your filter.

Sodium thiosulfate is the active ingredient in many commercial dechlorinators sold for the aquarium hobby, although many manufacturers have gone the way of Seachem - don't tell people what is in it and claim it does everything. 

See aquariumscience.org articles regarding dechlorinators. I am not a chemist and he is.

Why not just buy a small bottle of it for like $25 like the rest of us? ahahaha

Do you think it will stink like Prime? Let's hope not!  🙂

there is so much in a bag you probably should remove some for your lifetime use and put it in a smaller water tight container. 

Oh, also, can you premix it to use as a liquid? 

On 3/3/2022 at 10:04 PM, HH Morant said:

I use Seachem Prime and Safe. They work great to dechlorinate my tap water so I can use it in my aquarium.  I don't believe they do that other stuff that Seachem claims [see my earlier post - "Hold my beer while I detoxify this"].

So I bought 10 pounds of sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate - $24.99 on Amazon.

I have not used it yet. The label says 4 teaspoons neutralizes 1 ppm chlorine in 10,000 gallons of water. So one quarter of a teaspoon neutralizes 1 ppm in 625 gallons.

One quarter of a teaspoon is about 21 crystals, see the picture below. So each crystal dechlorinates about 29.76 gallons.

I think 10 pounds might be a lifetime supply if I just do the 1 ppm dose. But I understand that some people recommend 4 times the 1 ppm dose to protect against occasional super-chlorination by municipalities. 

Has anyone used this product?

Your post-it says "1ppm ammonia" on it. I think you meant chlorine.

[HH Morant]

On 3/4/2022 at 10:54 AM, Wrencher_Scott said:

there is so much in a bag you probably should remove some for your lifetime use and put it in a smaller water tight container. 

Oh, also, can you premix it to use as a liquid? 

Dave at aquariumscience.org says you can mix it with water and use the solution like Prime. I recently asked him if you can use it in dry form like Safe, and he said yes.

I am thinking about putting some of the 10 pounds in a time capsule so that when they develop the technology to cure whatever I died of, defrost me and bring me back to life, I will have some dechlorinator.

Or I may leave it to somebody in my will.

[HH Morant]

On 3/4/2022 at 10:54 AM, Wrencher_Scott said:

Your post-it says "1ppm ammonia" on it. I think you meant chlorine.

You are right. I meant to write "chlorine" instead of "ammonia" in the photo of the crystals.

Thanks.

Edited March 6, 2022 by HH Morant

[Wrencher_Scott]

On 3/4/2022 at 9:03 AM, HH Morant said:

Dave at aquariumscience.org says you can mix it with water and use the solution like Prime. I recently asked him if you can use it in dry form like Safe, and he said yes.

I am thinking about putting some of the 10 pounds in a time capsule so that when they develop the technology to cure whatever I died of, defrost me and bring me back to life, I will have some dechlorinator.

Or I may leave it to somebody in my will.

Does it have a smell to it???  Like Prime? That stuff stinks. 

I saw the message you sent to him now that you mentioned it. 

[Flumpweesel]

Wow that stuff is good value, I have just estimated my usage it would be 1g a water change so a 1kg tub would give me 1000 water changes I change water every 8 weeks ish. So what would be me covered for the next 153 years. All for under £7 

I'll have to use up all my prime first though. 

Looking forward to hearing how it works out for you.

Oh and I noticed in list of applications for this stuff it is an antidote to cyanide poisoning. 

[Guppysnail]

On 3/5/2022 at 6:03 AM, Flumpweesel said:

Oh and I noticed in list of applications for this stuff it is an antidote to cyanide poisoning. 

That’s a very interesting piece of trivia. I wonder if this is part of seachems claim for detoxification of heavy metals?🤔. I often wish I was sciencey enough to know these types of things. 🙃

[HH Morant]

I used the sodium thiosulfate yesterday. It worked fine.

But because it is in crystal form rather than fine grains (like Safe), it takes the sodium thiosulfate about 2 minutes to fully dissolve in water.

Also, in order to fix my mistake in the crystal picture in my first post (I wrote "ammonia" rather than "chlorine"), I added a picture. But when I measured a quarter teaspoon the second time, I got 17 crystals rather than 21, so I re-wrote the paragraph about the crystals.

Anyway, it is as good as it is going to get.

[Guppysnail]

I think your post is just fine. If it is safe to use 4x the dose of the powder Safe I do not see why it would be much different than a bit more of this being used. The dissolve time is a handy thing to know. 

[Flumpweesel]

You could grind it into a finer powder to increase solubility and it would make measuring easier. However 2 mins isn't very long to wait

[Matthew does stuff]

Now this is a good way to save money! 

[Wrencher_Scott]

@HH Morant

I just ordered a lifetime supply myself (4 ounces), not 100 lifetimes like you. lol

I decided to kick Seachem to the curb too. That Prime is not sodium thiosulfate and it smells so we will see how it goes. 

I looked at API's stuff and it is sodium thiosulfate but also has something else in it too that chelates metals I guess?

Anyway, I figured I don't want anymore chemical in my water than I have too. 

Oh, so you figure 1 crystal per 35 gallons correct? So how much are you going to use? 

As an example I change 20 gallons at once in a trash can, so should I use maybe 3 crystals to be sure? 

I think my tap water is less than 1ppm chlorine usually. 

p.s. how do you send a pm? I think I my have been shut off? Not sure. I was shut off from posting yesterday I think (on today) and I have no idea why. Do mods here just turn you off with no warning or nothing? weird.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Wrencher_Scott

[Streetwise]

@Wrencher_Scott, I misread a post with quotes as spam. I fixed it this morning. I have been playing a lot of defense behind the scenes lately. I didn’t catch the PM settings change, and just took care of that for your account. Sorry for the misunderstanding!

[HH Morant]

On 3/6/2022 at 11:39 AM, Wrencher_Scott said:

@HH Morant

As an example I change 20 gallons at once in a trash can, so should I use maybe 3 crystals to be sure? 

I think my tap water is less than 1ppm chlorine usually. 

 I think there is a regulation which says that the municipal water people can put in as much as four ppm chlorine, although one ppm is the regular dose in most places. I think that is where the 4 x dose comes from.

So I think 3 crystals ought to be fine for 20 gallons.

Overdosing sodium thiosulfate by any reasonable amount is not dangerous.

I assume the instructions on the bag of sodium thiosulfate anticipate that we will measure it in the crystal form.  If you crush it into a powder (to make it dissolve more quickly) you are going to get a lot more sodium thiosulfate in a quarter teaspoon.

[Wrencher_Scott]

On 3/6/2022 at 1:20 PM, HH Morant said:

 I think there is a regulation which says that the municipal water people can put in as much as four ppm chlorine, although one ppm is the regular dose in most places. I think that is where the 4 x dose comes from.

So I think 3 crystals ought to be fine for 20 gallons.

Overdosing sodium thiosulfate by any reasonable amount is not dangerous.

I assume the instructions on the bag of sodium thiosulfate anticipate that we will measure it in the crystal form.  If you crush it into a powder (to make it dissolve more quickly) you are going to get a lot more sodium thiosulfate in a quarter teaspoon.

Yep, ok, I will of course test the water after I treat it with my pool test kit. 

Kind of funny, 1 little crystal for 35 gallons. Man that sure is a high profit product for the aquarium supply guys like Seachem and API ect.

[Wrencher_Scott]

On 3/5/2022 at 6:10 AM, Guppysnail said:

That’s a very interesting piece of trivia. I wonder if this is part of seachems claim for detoxification of heavy metals?🤔. I often wish I was sciencey enough to know these types of things. 🙃

Turns out Prime does not seem to be sodium thiosulfate, it appears to be sodium dithionite. (a little google searching found this)

That would explain it's awful smell too. 

[HH Morant]

I used the sodium thiosulfate today to do a 60% water change on my 125 gallon aquarium. 

 I used my meat tenderizer hammer and a cutting board too crush it.  It appeared to dissolve immediately just as Safe does.

 I used more than the label suggests, but I also do that with Safe every time I use it.

[Guppysnail]

On 3/6/2022 at 4:20 PM, HH Morant said:

 I think there is a regulation which says that the municipal water people can put in as much as four ppm chlorine, although one ppm is the regular dose in most places. I think that is where the 4 x dose comes from.

So I think 3 crystals ought to be fine for 20 gallons.

Overdosing sodium thiosulfate by any reasonable amount is not dangerous.

I assume the instructions on the bag of sodium thiosulfate anticipate that we will measure it in the crystal form.  If you crush it into a powder (to make it dissolve more quickly) you are going to get a lot more sodium thiosulfate in a quarter teaspoon.

My water usually tests 2ppm chlorine. It hits 4ppm at random times. It comes out of the tap smelling like a swimming pool. 😝

[Odd Duck]

Got here again from the link in the new discussion. Maybe we need someone that has a lot of this on hand, ahem, @HH Morant, to experiment a little and crush a measured amount then figure out how much powder you get from that.  Then we can all just put some into an empty sea salt grinder and twirl away!  😉 😂 🤣 

Seriously, never put this into a grinder that someone might mistake for edible salt.  Not quite enough salt on your fries?  Here, have some sodium thiosulfate!

 🤢🤮😵‍😵🫠👻

Edited May 31, 2022 by Odd Duck