Potassium metabisulfite - dechlorinator?

[argnom]

I was looking through some old junk I have and I came upon a bag of potassium metabisulfites.

I got this when I was about 15-16. My buddies and me were tired of having a hard time purchasing alcohol (the legal age to purchse alcohol is 18 over here), so we decided to make our own. After all, malt extract contains no alcohol, why would the guy at the brewing store refuse to sell us some. Man did we have fun that summer!

Then I got a flash...

"Didn't we use that stuff to dechlorinate our water?" Thinks I.

Indeed we did. I took a good look at my bottle of Seachem Prime. On the side, it is said that it contains "complexed sulfite salts".

I think Seachem is playing with their science-words to confuse us again. Just like their "polycycloglutaracetal".

Is anyone here using potasium metabisulfite as a dechlorinator?

Thanks!

 

[Philosophos]

Never tried it my self. Found a recommendation for using sodium metabisulphite as well though. Seems to be used in RO systems already. If you've got campden tablets, they can contain either or both. Here are a couple resources I came across:

The Skeptical Aquarist
Chlorine and Chloramine

-Philosophos

 

[argnom]

Thanks

Yeah, I also found some references to sodium metabisulfite on the www. I still have about 500g of the stuff. I'll give it a try. I unfortunately do not have a chlorine test kit though but since the water over here has lots of chlorine, I'll just use my nose as a test kit.

From what I've head, less than 1g of the stuff will bind chlorine in 5 US gallons of water.

Cheers!

 

[argnom]

Sorry to bump this old thread, I seem to be a little late in my update... about 1 year late...

I've been using only potassium metabisulfite to remove chlorine from my tap water since I last posted. Everything works fine. No long term problems with my tanks. It's a whole lot cheaper than those bottles of ready-made stuff. You should be able to find some at places that sell brewers stuff (wine or beer).