Water Changes In Hot Weather

[rdd1952]

I live near Charlotte, NC where the high today was over 100. I came home and started my weekly water change on both my 75 and 29 gallon tanks. I syphoned/vacuumed and got out the python to refill. Usually, I stick a digital thermometer in the tank, see what the tank temp is and them match the tap temp within a degree before starting to refill. Today, with the temp so high outside (and in the crawl space of my house where the plumbing is, my tap water on ALL cold was over 83 degrees. Since I had already removed water (15 gallon from the 75 and 5 from the 29) I had to fill them back up. The temp in the 75 gallon went from 78.1 to 79.8. The 29 gallon wasn't quite that much with only a 1 degree change. Has anyone else experienced this and what do you do to prevent large temp changes? Our temperatures are supposed to get back to normal on Thursday so I hope I don't run into this again.

 

[trisha1972]

I'm trying to hold off until Thursday or Friday to do my water changes because of the weather here being so hot.

Couldn't you just fill up a container, let it cool a bit, then add it to the tank?

 

[rdd1952]

Unfortunately, since I bought my python, I have used most of the buckets I used before for other things so I only had 2 buckets I could use. I guess I could have floated ice bags in them to lower it. Didn't really think of that at the time. The fish all seem to be fine so I don't think it has bothered them.

 

[smithrc]

just add cold water slowly...

I gave up temp matching a long time ago - the water temp in rivers will rise and fall over the course of a day anyway - just do it slowly.

 

[Soaup]

Yes agreed, it should be fine if you add it slowly so the fish dont really notice, a one degree rise and drop should harm the fish.. Another suggestion which i saw from someone else was fill the buckets and let them sit room temp.. Then pour them in..

 

[rdd1952]

Yes agreed, it should be fine if you add it slowly so the fish dont really notice, a one degree rise and drop should harm the fish.. Another suggestion which i saw from someone else was fill the buckets and let them sit room temp.. Then pour them in..

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Adding slowly wasn't an option since I didn't have any way to set up a drip line to syphon it back in as I have no way to get the buckets high enough. I also didn't have enough buckets to let the water sit overnight. I guess the best option would have been to put ice bags in the buckets to cool them down. As it turned out, the temp change didn't seem to bother the fish at all. They are doing fine.

 

[smithrc]

i really didnt read your original post....

Sorry - In that case i would have tried in the early morning hopfully it wouls have cooled back down.

 

[rdd1952]

One of the tanks was low enough that I couldn't run my filters so I had to get water back in it. Hopefully it won't happen again.