Changing Water In A Big Tank

[afishdude]

eek i've never added water direct from the hose into the tank when doing water changes, surely that'll kill bacteria in the filter?

that's my main concernbut even currently, lifting the 5gal of water to a level above the tank is killing my back and i am only 20...

if your concerned then turn the filter off for the 2 min you are adding the water. then the declor can work on all the water.

I use filtered water in my 75, no conditioner needed. I would get a few buckets, age and condition the water before it goes in the tank...just to be safe.

i have a filter tap installed in my kitchen sink but I always used dechlorinator lol are u telling me I don't need to?

thats filtered water, as in pure water. it uses a type of declor to remove the chlorines.

 

[Tolak]

i've done both, but am now a strictly straight from the tapper kinda guy. Good thing we don't use the laundry sink in the basement, i've got a hose attached to the faucet for water changes.

Sounds like my setup, except I have a Y valve, with a shutoff on each end. One goes to the fishroom, another to a few feet of hose so you can use the sink. A few feet of hose makes a utility sink even more useful. Rinsing smaller tanks, washing the dog, the list is endless.

eek i've never added water direct from the hose into the tank when doing water changes, surely that'll kill bacteria in the filter?

Not at all, first off, dechlorinator works nearly instantly, in less than one second. I've seen demontrations where various water conditioners are compared, using a yellow tagging agent to mark chlorine & chloramine. Second, the amount of chlorine in your water is at such a weak concentration that it will take much longer for it to damage any fish or nitrifying bacteria than it takes for the dechlorinator to do its intended job. If it were strong enough to damage anything that quickly it would make your tap water undrinkable.

I've been using hoses for years, look at what I have running in my profile, and understand that I'm doing 50% to 80% water changes weekly. Buckets would be unworkable.

For an interesting read check out http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...guera&st=16

I tried a 50% water change with no dechlorinator on a tank full of angel fry some time ago. After two hours I got sick of checking on the tank, added dechlor, and never had a problem with the tank, fish or filtration wise.

 

[mark7616]

I use an evolution aqua dechlorinator that connects to my hose so the water runs through that before it goes into my tank. But if I dont use that all i do is add the dechlorinator to the water while its filling up seeing as on a water change I change about 350 litres as my tank is 1560 litres and it takes about 45 mins to a hour for it to fill up and I do this twice a week.

 

[chrisovington]

Oh man, I've been using a bucket on the 80 I've got, this is great to know!!

 

[GRJ]

I fill mine up from an outside tap with no problems at all. I add the dechlorinater directly to the tank after i have taken out 20-30% and then fill up with cold water from tap. The temp doesnt go down, maybe 2 degrees at the most and it doesnt harm the bacteria in the filter as when you are filling the tank up with water, the dechlorinater works instantly and so when you turn the filter back on, no chlorine! Gra

 

[Jonno]

yes this is great to know - you've saved me so many trips back and forward holding a 14 gal bucket B)

going to try the above tomorrow

 

[TNW]

I feel like such a twit now... I've been taking out my water one bucket at a time, filling up a bucket with mixed hot/cold water to make sure the temp's alright, adding dechlorinator to each individual bucket and even sometimes adding it to the tank itself just to be safe.

I'm presuming this is still safe for smaller tanks, too? Say 3' or 4' long?

 

[Tolak]

I do everything from a 10 gallon on up with hoses. The 2.5's I use for hatching have very young fry, who are sensitive to current being that small. I have a gallon jug with some holes punched in it that I pour water into as to trickle it into the tank.

 

[Bath Tussue]

thanks everyone for the input
this makes life so much easier