Water Changes

[Poot]

Any tips on water changes, how do you get it up to temperture, do you condition it, do you put it in straight away. Any hints would be great.

 

[Alien Anna]

Any tips on water changes, how do you get it up to temperture, do you condition it, do you put it in straight away. Any hints would be great.

I fill a 10 litre bucket I have specially for the purpose with tap water, a mixture of hot and cold which I estimate as being tank temperature (I seem to have a knack at doing this, although at first I had to use a thermometer). Then I put in some simple dechlorinator (not expensive stuff with aloe vera and goodness knows what, just basic dechlorinator).

I fill another bucket just the same. Then I use my siphon gravel cleaner to remove 20 litres of water from my tank (this gizmo sucks up the detritus from the gravel at the same time). I then pour the new water in.

In my livebearer tank the water change is quite an event - the fish love to go under the water stream as I pour it in. In my tetra/gourami tank the residents are somewhat less keen and tend to hide.

I don't really have to worry that much about the temperature because I'm generally doing no more than a 15% water change anyway and the water isn't cold at this time of year.

For four tanks it usually takes 20 minutes so it's not a difficult process. I either water my compost heap with with old water, or my plants in the garden. Waste not, want not.

 

[Poot]

(dumb question part II) .... Do you use water from the hot water tap, or do you boil tap water?

 

[Alien Anna]

(dumb question part II) .... Do you use water from the hot water tap, or do you boil tap water?

There are no dumb questions (well, maybe "Can I keep 2 oscars in a 2 ft tank?" might qualify... )

I use water from my hot tap, but you have to be careful because the hot tap can have all sorts of impurities in it. Sometimes I put some boiling water from the kettle in.

 

[Kossy]

Yes there aren't dumb questions.

Ok the way i change water is filling up buckets of tap water. I leave them over night to remove and chemicals (I don't use chemicals to remove chemicals). THe next day I add some boiling water to adjust the temperatures. This is done so the fish don't experience a shocking temp shock. Good Luck

 

[smb]

(dumb question part II) .... Do you use water from the hot water tap, or do you boil tap water?

Let the hot water run for a few minutes before you add it to the tank to ensure that it isn't sitting in copper pipes for any length of time.

I just add it to the tank along with dechlor.

There's really no right or wrong answer though. It all depends on what the tap water registers. Generalizations might be innacurate depending on where you live and you should test your tapwater and post your results for best info on what to do as you might have to take more steps. ( I know you were only asking what others did and they provided the info you asked for so no harm done there since you got what your question asked)

 

[guppymonkey]

I live in a basement room and have no hot water in my sink. Is it bad to use cold water during water changes? Or should I lug hot water down from upstairs?

 

[smb]

I live in a basement room and have no hot water in my sink. Is it bad to use cold water during water changes? Or should I lug hot water down from upstairs?

As long as the water is the same temp as the aquarium when you put it in, then it's fine. You just don't want a temperature fluctuation.

 

[Inchworm]

Now I have a dumb question.

I have a 2 gal. pot that I use for water changes. I put the declorinator drops in it and then run the water in vigorously. While I am doing this I scoop up cupfuls of water and, holding it at arms length above the pot, spill it back in.

I was taught to do this, years ago, to "release trapped gases from the water." (I think it has something to do with the bubbles that form on the side of a glass of tap water when it stands.)

Does this practice have any merit or have I just been following an "old wives tale" sort of thing all this time?

Well, it's fun to splash about, anyway!!!!

 

[guppymonkey]

Looks like I am going to have to take hot water from upstairs and drag it down because my water is about 60 degrees. Dang, thats going to be a pain.

 

[Liz05]

Or, guppymonkey, you could just let the water set overnight to become room temperature. Unless your home is also 60 degrees

 

[Inchworm]

Just get in the habit of bringing down some very hot water and mix it down there, guppymonkey. There are some areas where you can cut corners and get away with it, but I wouldn't include having the proper temperature of water among them.

If you add cold water and give the fish a chill you risk weakening them and leaving them open to the possibility of disease. A nasty bout of ick would be a high price to pay for the convenience of putting in cold water.

 

[subopposite]

If you do small water changes, then the temperature of the water you are introducing should barely change the overall temerature of the tank. For instance, you have a 20 gallon tank at 80 degrees. If you did a 5 gallon change at 60 degrees, I would guess that your temperature after the water change will have dropped to 75 degrees. That is a 5 degree change, so probably too much to do at once. If you did only a 10% change, which is 2 gallons your temperature should drop only to 78, which I would think should be safe especially with a heater going.

I guess if you wanted to do more than a 10% water change, you could always change 10% of it, then wait until the heater gets the temperature back up from 78 to 80 degrees and then do another 10% water change. This will make it so your temperature shouldn't fluxuate more than 2 degrees at a time while using cold water.

This could be wrong, but what seems logical to me. I am pretty new to this, but again, it seems to make sense to me. Someone will let you know if this is wrong I am sure.

 

[kev]

I put the declorinator drops in it and then run the water in vigorously

I always do this don't really know why though. I also always leave my water in a warm place in the house (usually the bath room) over night.

Because I do this do I not need to add declorinator?? Is there any tests for clorine as I suppose its not worth the risk if it hasn't removed all the clorine on it own

 

[CFC]

Unless your water is a cold as ice or you are changing huge ammounts of water (over 20% of the tank volume) then you really dont have to bring it up to tank temperature before adding it to the tank, in fact adding coldwater to the tank when doing water changes is a common way of helping induce fish to spawn. I stopped bothering to warm the water up long ago as adding 6 gallons of coldwater to a 30 gallon tank, 8 gallons to a 40 gallon tank or 15 gallons of coldwater to a 75 gallon tank hardly registers on the thermometer.

Using the hot water tap is not a good idea, the water will often have been sitting in the copper boiler tank for some time (unless you have a system that heats the water as you use it) and will have traces of copper in it, im not sure what effect copper has on fish but i am sure its not good for them.

You should always use a dechlorinator, while standing the water will remove chlorine gas from the water it will not remove chloramines, even though UK water companies dont use chloramines (i dont know about the states) i wouldnt take the risk, in fact the tapwater around where i live is so bad i dont use it at all anymore, all my water changes are done with RO water.