Water Changes Water...

[Inchworm]

Since it is well known that adding cooler water encourages many egglayers (such as cories) to spawn, I think we may deduce that the coming of the rains does bring about some sort of change of temperature in the wild, though it may not be enormous. Then again, the temperature drop from adding 20% of tap water is not likely to be that enormous either; it hardly comes out of the tap at freezing temperatures.

Hi dwarfgourami,

True, the addition of cool water often brings about spawning in corys, but this is only one of a number of things that is going on in their natural environment at the time. It happens annually too, not every week. During this time the corys that were hatched the previous rainy season have reached maturity and, along with the older corys, they have eaten their fill during the year and should be in prime condition to face this event. Not only does the water temperature change, but the chemistry changes too, and the availability of food is seasonally different.

On the other hand, sudden drops in temperature have been known to set off bouts of ich in fish that can be effected by it, and sudden rises in temperature is one of the stress factors that sometimes lead to bacterial infections. While a change of just a couple of degrees is probably OK, I wouldn't want to take a chance of varying the temperature any more than that.

 

[T1KARMANN]

I know what you mean but there is also a lot more water which means a lower concentration of parasites than our little tanks. How long does it take your water to come back to normal temps.

parasites what are they i use UVs and havent had ick or anything like that since the late 80s the temp is normally back up to normal buy the morning

the temp drop is also a good way of tricking the fish into spawning


if you stop messing with the water you will have less problems

i never use water from the bath room as that is stored in a tank in the loft who know what can get in the loft tank dead birds rat and mice crap bits of lead that have fallen from the roof and lets be fair you would brush you teeth with bathroom water but would you ever drink it

also i would never use warm water from the tap as it goes throw the boiler have you seen how milky the hot water looks some times

just stick to plain old drinking water if its good enought to drink its good enought for my fish

fishkeeping is ment to be fun not having big buckets of water all over the place waiting for the next water change if you have space for all that stored water you have space for a bigger tank

 

[rich]

I leave 2 buckets overnight, then add dechlorinator just before I add the water the following evening. It means I will definitely do it if the water is sat waiting.

 

[rixy]

i use my builders bucket(fish only) and fill up in the bathroom.i then mix in some dechlorinator and chuck it in.

 

[Discomafia]

I have a 20G tote box that I got from Home Depot that I use to store my water. It's near the laundry room, so the temperature is always 5-10 degrees celcius lower than my room. So every week when I do a water change of 12G, before I use the water in the tote box that has been there for a week (with a lid over the box), I add an appropriate amount of hot water to raise the temperature of the water in the 20G to match my tank. After that, I use a 4G bucket to transfer the water from the tote box to my tank. Then refill the tote box. The whole process takes around half an hour...

 

[monkeyman]

BUMP it up, lets try to get a survey of 100!!

 

[Griz]

When I do a water change, I set out enough water for my next change. Of course it's only a 33 gal and so I only need 10 gal per change. With a bigger tank or more of them this would not be practical.

 

[morgan]

Dechlorinate and dump it in. Add warm water first using kettle and saucepans to save time. I have 6 buckets just for the fishkeeping.

 

[PlecMama]

We have a brewing bucket, the kind you make your home brew beer in, it holds 25L at a time, so we take out two or three buckets and put back the same.

We fill the buckets in the bath and use a mix of hot & cold straight from the taps, treat it and in it goes.

Never worried about stuff getting in the water in the loft and I would happily drink bathroom water, the tank has a lid on it, it's supposed to have a lid on it....

Regarding my coldies tanks - I always think it's funny that we go to great lengths boiling rocks and stuff to go in the tank then come summer we take the fish outside and dump them in the pond - without boiling anything I think we fuss a bit to much too.

 

[monkeyman]

Come on guys! Only antoher 20 or so votes to make it a big survey of 100!!!

 

[monkeyman]

21 more votes for the 100!

 

[Ami]

Ok monkeyman, I bit the bullet and voted for dump it straight in, seeing as tha's what happens on 2 out of my 3 tanks, just to give you that extra vote!

Ami

 

[vivh]

hiya

i was told to leave the water to stand overnight to allow gases to be released, (add the de chlorinator) apparently our water has lots of things done to it apart from the obvious chlorination during processing, and the fish are meant to be better off if it hasn't come staright out of our taps - something to do with the water pressure i believe ....... obviously this was what the guy in the shop told me, so it may not be entirely accurate.

any one like to comment on this theory.

i also add some bio in each time i do a water change, this seems to be working well so far, my tank is about 5 months old and all my water tests have been spot on so far.

Viv

 

[monkeyman]

Ok monkeyman, I bit the bullet and voted for dump it straight in, seeing as tha's what happens on 2 out of my 3 tanks, just to give you that extra vote!

Ami

Thanks Ami

 

[monkeyman]

10 more votes fot the ton!