Water Changing Issue...

[Paavn]

so before i got fish i figured it would be smart to get all the problems out the way.
i have a 20 gallon tank so a top is pretty easy with a bucket and doesn't change the temperature of the water much. however after doing a gravel vacuum i was wondering what would be the easiest way, i have the python thing but the issue of bringing the water to temperature still remains an issue.
i was thinking if water conditioners specifically for fish were meant to treat heavy metals, why is it still a problem using water that comes out of the hot water tap?

pretty much all water contains metals in it if it comes from the tap....

 

[rdd1952]

You shouldn't have any issues with water straight from the cold tap unless you are doing large water changes (50% or more). Most likely the tap water won't be colder than mid to upper 50s and if the tank is upper 70s, that wouldn't change the water temp more than about 4 degrees on a 25% WC. I have always used the hot water to regulate the temp of the water I'm putting back without any problems. I just let it run for 30 sec. to a minute to clear the lines.

While pythons are very easy to use, I rarely use mine for a WC on my 29 gallon unless I'm also doing the 75 gallon. If I'm only changing 5 gallons of water (25% for you, about 16% for my 29 gallon), I just use a bucket. A lot simpler than connecting the python and all that. Also, taking water out with the python just wastes too much water. I always do gravel vacs with the hand held vac.

 

[Paavn]

thanks rdd1952
it was a bit of a hassle uncoiling a 20ft (?) tube to suck out a little bit of water. if i bought it then i'd be furious at myself but i didnt so phew
i wonder why people keep saying that you shouldn't use the hot water tap to regulate the temp

 

[Tolak]

You have to remember this is a multi-national forum, many countries have different ways of heating hot water for household use. Usually in the US a gas or electric heater, with water stored under pressure is the norm. Other areas use hot water drawn off of the boiler, which constantly recirculates the water until some is drawn off for household use. This constant recirculation can pick up metals from the pipes.

Still others store the hot water in a tank above the living area, gravity fed with an open top. Bugs, or other living things can fall in, this can create problems besides metals.

I have a gas fired hot water heater under pressure, use a mix of warm & cold tap water, and have had no problems for years. I can go with straight cold if I trickle it in, it is cheaper for me to heat water with gas than to have the electric tank heaters bring it up to temperature.

Most of my tanks are angels, kept at 80F+. I'm filling at 5 gallons per minute, if the tap comes out at 50F, the difference in a 50% water change will drop it to 65F in 3 minutes on a 29 gallon tank. Filling slower will allow the heater in the tank to heat it a bit more, I'm not going to spend a lifetime filling tanks when I can just use a little warm & fill them quicker.

 

[Paavn]

considering i lived in africa and we used electric heaters to heat and hold water till it was used on a need only basis i am ashamed of myself for not remembering that, we had the gravity based water tanks for the cold water though (which often got worms in it... curable by potassium permanganate)

 

[Schmill]

To give you an idea...

I live in the UK.
My cold water is mains fed.
In the loft I have a LARGE plastic container (with lid) that is filled with cold water from the mains. It is this container that gives me hot water pressure in the house.
The plastic container is connected via copper piping to a hot water cylinder. This is a large copper tank, insulated on the outside, and with a coil of pipe in the bottom that the heated water from the boiler gets pumped through, (NB my hot water for the taps NEVER goes near the boiler. Water on a continuous cycle is heated in the boiler, cycled through the heating pipe in the bottom of this heating tank, and then returned to the boiler for heating again, this process heats the water in the tank). The water will sit hot in this copper tank until it is needed.
The hot water tank is then connected to the various taps in the house by copper piping.

I'm hoping to have shrimps in my tank, which will react very badly to any copper in the water, (ie. DIE).

So at the moment I only use cold water to fill my tank, and use a kettle / microwave to heat any that I need to in order to even the temperature a bit.
There is a possibility that my hot water is ok, or that the dechlor will deal with it, but until I get a decent copper test kit, the amount of copper teh water is stored, heated, and passed through makes me very weary of it.

 

[Essjay]

The OP lives in Los Angeles, but some of us live in colder climates. Our water is much colder than mid 50s. I just measured ours, and it's 46F, 8C straight out of the tap. Would it be OK to use just cold water at this temperature for a water change? Like schmill, we have a copper hot water storage tank, and I have shrimps and snails, so I usually add water boiled in a kettle. At the moment, I'm using 1.5 litres boiling water topped with cold water in a 8 litre bucket, and it's still cooler than the tank!

 

[Schmill]

I am dreading today, I have to do close to a 300L (100%) water change at the end of my cycle ready to put the fish in, and need it to be warm water - lol
I think my kettle might get a fair bit of use today!

 

[rdd1952]

Schmill, this is off topic but you can get by with a smaller WC depending on how high your nitrates are. That's really the only reason for the big WC. Of course, I know a lot of people in the UK already have high nitrates in their tap water.

 

[Schmill]

Cheers rdd, my NitrAtes are 40ppm from the tap, and as my fish have been shipped from elsewhere in the UK I want to get the nitrAtes as low as possible for the transition.

I dropped my water level to around 6" last night, fish arrived an hour or so ago, and I'll be heading home soon to start planting then populating all being well

Thanks for the point though, could have been useful

 

[Paavn]

so i did a little bit of research and still couldn't find out what the inner most layer of my tank is, the most i got was "glass lined" but i think that is going to be right outside the copper storage tank. sine i live in a pretty old building im going to assume we have copper pipes because the faucet heads have a calcium build up with a little bit of bluish-green stain (the oxidized copper), i started to look around for a copper neutralizer and behold API's water treatment states it neutralizes copper, and Tetra's AquaSafe says it neutralizes heavy metals as well.

Schmill if you are going to keep shrimp you could have a go at this, i probably will in a few months when my tank is settled in and i get some plants in there for the shrimp lol

 

[OldMan47]

A glass lined water heater is the most common type in the US. They mean there is a fiberglass coating on the inside of the metal tank. With that configuration, there is no metal getting into the water while it sits in the tank unless the fiberglass liner has a hole in it. That is exactly the type of heater that I have and I never worry about metals in my hot water. The only chance for any metals to dissolve is in the pipe from the water heater to the faucet which is the same chance as the cold water pipe has. As Tolak said, it is much cheaper to heat water in the water heater than it is in the aquarium.

 

[Paavn]

thanks oldman47 you were able to help me better than the water heater distributor lol - they like a lot of places don't know enough about their products

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I'm USA too and do just like OM47, I use the hot water from my glass-lined hot water heater directly and have never had any problems either.

Took me a long to realize that by "boilers", the UK folks must be talking about having hot water or steam radiator type heating for their house, right?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[andywg]

The OP lives in Los Angeles, but some of us live in colder climates. Our water is much colder than mid 50s. I just measured ours, and it's 46F, 8C straight out of the tap. Would it be OK to use just cold water at this temperature for a water change?

Fine for normal water changes (up to 25/30%). For larger you might want to consider adding some warm.