I’ve been keeping fish for years and have always been told to put dechlorinator in the water to make it safe for fish, but what does dechlorinator actually do? The chlorine and chloramine can’t magically disappear, it has to go somewhere.
In: Chemistry
A lot of common ones use Sodium Thiosulfate to turn the chlorine into chloride ions, which are safe. The formula here would be:
S2O3– + 4Cl2 + 5H2O => 2SO42– + 8Cl- + 10H+
Now when the chlorine is in chloramine a similar reaction happens, but it leaves behind ammonia. Obviously something we don’t want, so they have to use something to render the ammonia safe. I can’t fine as much information on this part of the dechlorinating process, but at least one uses Sodium Hydroxymethanesulfonate. Don’t know the equation for that one unfortunately since there’s not as much info.
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