Hot Water Tap!

[kevinjames]

what does everyone think about using the hot water tap for your water changes opinions please.

 

[Mikaila31]

It is fine and we have a hot water tank. GBR and sparkling gouramis are the more sensitive fish that I accidentally spawned with my well water.

 

[PDSimon]

I tested mine for copper (which was 0ppm) so I use it too

 

[Big_eyes]

Where does this hot water thing come from??

 

[SlyPolak]

Other than copper, you have to think how old the boiler is.. It HAS to collect silt and other metals from you pipes and boiler... I just would'nt risk it but I live in Florida so most of the time the water from the cold tap comes out a little too warm.

 

[PDSimon]

In the UK though its much too cold

 

[meguro]

ur water conditioner should take care of anything in either hot or cold water

 

[kevinjames]

[quote name='meguro' date='14 June 2010 - 07:42 PM' timestamp='1276540531' post='27600
ur water conditioner should take care of anything in either hot or cold water
[/quote]


its just my tank water becomes cloudy and i dont know why

 

[Big_eyes]

ur water conditioner should take care of anything in either hot or cold water

Yeah that's what I would of thought.

Although I know plenty of folk who don't use water conditioner and get on just fine.

 

[mbsqw1d]

ur water conditioner should take care of anything in either hot or cold water

Yeah that's what I would of thought.

Although I know plenty of folk who don't use water conditioner and get on just fine.

If you fill a drinking glass from the hot water tap, what does it look like? Cloudy? If so thats why your tank water is cloudy (most likely).

I personally don't trust water from the hot water tap, I don't even like to fill the kettle from it. But then everyones water-heating/plumbing system is different from home to home.

The water that leaves your hot water tap has certainly gone through a lot more pipe-work than the cold has!

Do you have any large vessels where you can store the water inbetween water changes and allow it to get to room temp?

 

[Big_eyes]

ur water conditioner should take care of anything in either hot or cold water

Yeah that's what I would of thought.

Although I know plenty of folk who don't use water conditioner and get on just fine.

If you fill a drinking glass from the hot water tap, what does it look like? Cloudy? If so thats why your tank water is cloudy (most likely).

Neah, just a bit bubbly and then it's fine.

If you have cloudy water from your hot tap then you wanna be making some updates to your 1950's pad!

 

[Defiance]

To clarify why some hot water is cloudy

In new builds in uk the boiler system is generally a 'combi' boiler setup, imagine a electric/gas shower, as you open the tap the boiler fires up, the more you open the hot water tap the more water flows the less heat intensity there is, so opening a modern combi boiler tap system slowly does two things

1: lower water flow allows the hot water to heat up better

2: creates minute bubbles (look inside a kettle as water heats up you'll see bubbles coming from nowheres as such)

The bubbles are harmless hence you can have piping hot water that looks like barley water squash, after a while, bingo all clear

To some degree old coiled heating/water systems give off micro bubbles, but really nothing beats a combi setup for low flowing piping hot bubbly water

Tony

Ohh i use a dechlorinator as still a lot of new builds have good ole copper piping somewhere

 

[Big_eyes]

Ohh i use a dechlorinator as still a lot of new builds have good ole copper piping somewhere

Still don't think it would be enough on a routine weekly water change though to have any effect. Besides if you've got copper piping then it's going to be on the hot and cold taps anyway.

Come to think of it, I've never seen a house that doesn't have copper piping

 

[Defiance]

Hiya's,

Honestly i use a dechlor out of habit really

Years ago i used to maintain old koi pools etc as part of a side-living, lots of old copper and brass fittings, never came across anything untoward

Just in aquariums i would rather use a pond dechlo for pennies rather than not, as i say just habit

Yeah most taps are cast brass topped off with chrome plating etc, i'm sure copper is in brass (yrs since i did alloy science lol)

I maybe wrong too but many years ago i did a painting job in a water works (seedy mill just outside handsacre, if i rem right they had brass piping and cast allover the place lol)

I feel the dechlo is more for the chlorine/chloramide in water not so much the metals anyways but as it's aimed at these too so all the better

Tony

ps: i think you meant that i meant new builds might be free from copper, i meant that people reading the post about combi's in new builds should not assume they are copper free, as you say you've to see a house copper free pipe-wise, me too lol

(hmm does that read ok ? ) hehe

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Must confess I never gave using the hot water tap to get the right temperature for water changes any thought until this thread started, but now I'm thinking back to years ago when I saw a hot water tank up in the loft, exposed to the "loft biotope" and I vaguely remember finding a dead animal in there! Potentially, we could be exposing our fish to all sorts of bacteria using the hot water tap.

The QT holding the Panda Garras and Denisons Barb is getting its first water change of the week tomorrow, so I might try using boiled kettle water to raise the temperature of the cold water upto 24C. The only concern that immediately springs to mind is that I would expect the kH and gH values to be a bit lower using kettle boiled water, as this will lose some minerals to the limescale buildup us southerners see in our kettles, which potentially could upset the fish...

I will do my first gH and kH readings in a while (previously 240mg/l and 200mg/l respectively if memory serves me right) to see how much difference using kettle water makes.