Water Query

[Rod Boughton]

Hello,

I am new here, but not new to fishkeeping.

I used to keep fish about 18 years ago, i had four four foot tanks, a three foot and a two foot. I have just started again with a modest 2 foot 90 litre tank, and boy has it changed, tank cycling, chemicals, chemicals and more chemicals. I never had to go through all this trouble when i had tanks before, any way i'll get to the point, is it possible to use bottled water when doing water changes instead of tap water and going through all the trouble of de-chlorination etc.

Regards

Rod

 

[the biffster]

Hello,

I am new here, but not new to fishkeeping.

I used to keep fish about 18 years ago, i had four four foot tanks, a three foot and a two foot. I have just started again with a modest 2 foot 90 litre tank, and boy has it changed, tank cycling, chemicals, chemicals and more chemicals. I never had to go through all this trouble when i had tanks before, any way i'll get to the point, is it possible to use bottled water when doing water changes instead of tap water and going through all the trouble of de-chlorination etc.

Regards

Rod

i would recomend against the bottled
water rout as i dont think you get any benefit
from it its so easy now to use dechlonator now a days
all you do is add you dechloronator when you are
filling the bucket from the tap its so easy honastly

 

[Timmy_Bee]

also most people will say the 'additives' in tap water will be beneficial to your fish / plants.

If you really cant be bothered with de-chlor you can leave tap water for 24h in a tub or something and the chlor will evaporate, so if you were planning on buying giant bottles of water, you could do this but just re-use the bottles to store the water (with the lids off)

 

[VaegaVic]

Also like to point out how soft a lot of bottled water is.
If you live in a hard water area, you're going to have nothing but dead fish from pH swings all the time.

 

[frida]

You might find that using bottled water is going to work out very expensive! Especially if you're going for large tanks. Dechlorinators are cheap and super easy to use. Just add the right amount, give the water a swirl (wait a couple of minutes if you're paranoid) and hey presto!!

 

[Rod Boughton]

Thanks for all your input, all comments taken on board, can anyone tell me which dechlorinater is the best to use

Rod

 

[VaegaVic]

Thanks for all your input, all comments taken on board, can anyone tell me which dechlorinater is the best to use

Rod

My personal favourite has always been Seachem Prime.
One of the best on the market in terms of value for money, additives and ease of use.

 

[waterdrop]

Totally agree with VV. Seachem Prime not only works out to competitive with or even more value than the Pond dechlor products but is also of very high quality at handling temporary water problems of various sorts. Its just a no-brainer for many of us.

Would also like to second the advice about not going with bottled or mineral waters for fish tanks. Its not a rumor, its quite real that plants and fish very much need the things commonly found in tap water and it can be a life and death difference for them. Some bottled waters can be too low in minerals and many mineral waters can be too high and/or contain the wrong minerals. Also, its important to note for people -not- using a modern dechlor product such as Prime, that allowing chlorine to gas off overnight is becoming less and less a doable thing as more and more water districts are switching to the use of chloramines, which will not gas off in the same way.

~~waterdrop~~