Can I use chem. chlorine remover after turning fresh to salt

[paneubert]

My liverock will be here in a few days so I started mixing up my first batch of salt water so I can start to cure it when it arrives. But somehow I forgot to add chlorine remover before i mixed in the salt. Soooo........

Can/should I use chlorine remover after turning fresh to salt water? Basically what I am asking is if the chlorine must be eliminated before I turn my tap water into salt water. Do the crystals cause the chemical de-chlorinator to be less effective or whatknot.

I will be getting R/O eventually, so I wont have to use chemicals for long, but for the time being I need to chemically remove that chlorine.
Thanks for your time and consideration.

 

[Anonymous]

I would use carbon to take care of this instead of using dechlor. Most are chelate compounds, and things in the salt may complicate how well it will work.

Get some good carbon and run it for a day or two.

 

[paneubert]

Now that it has been sitting in my bucket for a couple hours, it smells like a swimming pool. I had originally run the water through a Britta/Pur type water filter just because I had the time and figured it couldn't hurt since i dont have R/O yet, and it did not smell at that point (Since the britta is specifically supposed to remove the taste/smell of chlorinated water. Is this smell just a result of the salt or is there some crazy reaction going on now that there is chorinated water mixed with my Reef Crystals?

I bought SeaChem "Prime" to dechlorinate my water as well as take care of some of the amonia. It claims that you can not only add it to salt water, but you can does it straight into your tank. So I will toss some of that into my saltwater bucket and see if this odor goes away.

 

[Meloco14]

Prime will work. If you have a hang on powerfilter lying around you can just run that with carbon and that will help as well. If not, you might want to look into getting a cheap one, they come in handy every now and then to clean up your water or run any type of chemical media. Also I have heard that some salt brands include a dechlorinator so you might want to see if the bag says anything about this. If it smells like a pool though, that's a pretty good chlorine giveaway. If you are in doubt after using prime you can get a chlorine test kit. Also I believe that chlorine when in water will naturally escape after a couple days, so simply mixing your saltwater and keeping it moving with a powerhead or airstone for a couple days will help remove the chlorine.

 

[Anonymous]

Some salt does smells like pool after you mix it, don't know about Reef Crystals.

Don't know if they change it yet, but some Brita filter has silver in the cartidge as a bacteria inhibitor... it is not something I want to play with for a reef tank.

If your tap water smell like chlorine, actual it can be a good news. Chlorine is a lot easier to get rid off compare to chloramine, which does not come out like chlorine if you leave the water out for a day or two. At any rate, you can find out what they put in your tap water by contact your water agency. They suppose to send you a water analysis every year.

 

[paneubert]

Thanks for all the help so far. I got the report from my local water and the levels that they report are...
Chloramines = 3.46 PPM
Chlorine = 1.96 PPM
It sounds like they use Chloramines 11 months of the year and Chlorine only in March. I have no idea why they do this alternating cycle. I am of course going to get rid of those chemicals before the water goes into my tank because no level should be acceptable in a tank, but I still think it is weird that my water smells so much like chlorine all of a sudden. Especially since this report claims they only use Chlorine in March. I am starting to think that my Reef Crystals are making it smell. I will keep you guys up to date as to what happens.