Easiest Way To Do Water Change On Tropical Tank?

[joel08]

Hi,
 
I have a 40 litre tank and want to add 10 litres of water in future to make it 50 litres. I only have one glass aquarium heater and it takes 24 hours to warm up the water to the correct temperature of 26C. I can't really afford to buy another one. 
 
What could I do to the new water to increase the temperature so it matches the tank temp. I was going to add some warm water but it could take ages by trial and error just to get a stable temperature. 
 
Please let me know how you would do it. 

 

[fluttermoth]

You only need to roughly match the temperature; feeling it with your hand is accurate enough.
 
To warm it, add a bit of boiled water from the kettle, or from the hot tap, if you have a combi boiler (although I don't and I've been using hot tap water for my water changes for years).
 
Do remember that fish in the wild would have to cope with temperature changes; sudden hot afternoons, or cold downpours, so they can cope, as long as the change is not too fast or sudden; don't be tipping 2 gallons of cold water on top of them!
 
But I use straight cold water on my big tanks and have never had a problem because I trickle it in very slowly, over a couple of hours.

 

[joel08]

So tropical fish can cope with room temperature water? How long would they survive?
 
My heater would hopefully warm it up eventually, but just so I know that its ok for 1-2 days at a cooler temp ?

 

[fluttermoth]

With smaller tanks, it's better to warm the water first.
 
It shouldn't take your heater that long to bring the temp back up, if you did use room temp water. 

 

[Tongue_Flicker]

What fishes do you have? 24-27 degrees Celsius is just normal for tropical fish. I don't think you should be worrying about it too much if you're maintaning it at 26

 

[Rob5]

When i do my water change, approximately 100 litres at a time,i just trickle cold tap water back in  in with my hosepipe which takes approximately 2 hours.
 
I put my spare heater in as well and usually only get a 4C temperature drop which the fish dont mind

 

[Garbolino]

I've found when doing a water change my fish like the colder temp going in, there play in & out of the water