More Questions On Pythons

[purple_drazi]

I've been wondering about getting a python. I get how it works but I've got some other questions:

- I always heard that you shouldn't use water from the hot water tap as it can have dissolved minerals that aren't good for the fish. true/false?

- if you use tap water don't you have to be careful about getting the temp in the right range? It's winter here and water coming straight out of the cold tap is REALLY cold, so I'd have to add some hot. How careful do I have to be about temp? Do I need to use a thermometer or is just judging by hand ok?

- I understand that you're supposed to add the water conditioner to the tank, then add the tap water and it all gets mixed in. What's to stop a fish from swimming into a bunch of the unmixed water as it's coming out of the python, before it gets mixed with the conditioner, and getting a gill full of clorine?

 

[pseud]

1 - Water conditioner takes care of that.

2 - Yes! be very careful. The sudden change in temperature can shock and kill your fish. A thermometer is best but judging by hand is fine.

3 - Nothing. But there's not alot you can do unless you either mix the water before hand, or come up with a device that will inject minute amounts of water conditioner into the dispensing hose at the ratio required to neutralize the harmful contaminants. Or you could invest in an RO unit for your tap. Besides, fish generally avoid the incoming water and stay on the other side of the tank. In any case. They'll be fine.

 

[Teelie]

Depending on your tap water, the fish should be fine as long as the majority of the water is treated immeadiately. When I worked at my LFS we just did buckets of tap water to top off tanks, sometimes this is six and seven gallons of water (being that we remove water when we sell fish) and we never had a problem with fish getting sick or dying.

Of course a real water change is something different and you do want to add conditioner when you do one.