Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => General Fishkeeping advice => Topic started by: Gav on January 06, 2015, 03:02:24 PM
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Hi, I've been wondering about something and if it was a good idea.
At the moment when I do water changes I heat 3 big pans up on the hob but this takes quite a while to heat enough to do my two tanks. My question is that with a combi boiler would I be ok to take the water directly out the hot tap, mix it with cold to get the desired temperature then add my de-chlorinator before adding it to the tank?
I thought it would be ok as the water is only heated in the boiler as it's needed and is never standing in a hot tank.
Thanks
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Don't know anything g about combi boilers, but my approach is completely different. I never change more than 10% of the water at a time and generally just use cold water, it only lowers the temp by a couple of degrees and the heater soon warms it up again. The fish seem to enjoy it and often come and swim around in the cooler water as it goes in. If the tap water is very cold, then either I leave the bucket in a warm room overnight, or I boil a kettle of water and add it to the bucket of cold. There's really no need to ensure the temp in your tank is absolutely constant, in the wild fish are often subject to sudden changes.
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Thanks for the reply Richard.
I'm in Moray in Northern Scotland so the water is very cold when it comes out the tap at the moment. The temp of the water I'm adding is often a few degrees cooler but didn't want to shock my fish too much.
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I don't see why you should have any problem, since the water isn't standing in a tank. The only problem using water from a water heating system is possible heavy metal contamination (e.g. copper, not loud music heavy metal :))) and your water conditioner would deal with that anyway.
Heavy metals can be a problem with water that has stood in a tank. Last winter I bought some plants from the internet and they were pretty cold when they arrived and so I warmed them up with a mixture of cold water and hot from my (copper) water tank. As they were "only plants" rather than fish, I didn't bother with water conditioner. I was amazed a couple of hours later to find that an Amazon sword plant had virtually lost all of its colour, and it died when I planted it. I later read that Amazon swords are apparently particularly sensitive to copper in water.
The water I add to my tanks is 15o lower than in the tanks, but it hasn't done any harm yet.
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Generally speaking, hot water from a combi boiler is safe though I have heard of someone who had all their piping replaced at the same time as getting a brand new boiler and the copper from the pipes killed their shrimps.
It is when the hot water sits in a tank that you need to be careful. Not because of copper from the tank but because of the header tank. This is the open topped tank in the attic which fills the hot water tank when you run hot water. There have been all sorts of nasties found in header tanks including dead rats and pigeons. We have had 2 wasps nests in the attic which were removed and the chap also sprayed insecticide on the site. When we needed to change the washer in the header tank tap, we found a lot of dead wasps in the water. Were they covered with insecticide? I would rather not risk it, so I boil a kettle.
I either put a full kettle of boiling water (1.5 litres) into my 7.5 litre bucket and alternate between the warm water and a bucket of just cold; or I use 0.75 litres boiling water in every 7.5 litre bucketful, which of course amounts to the same thing.
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I think I'll stick to putting the kettle on then, I really don't want to risk my fish.
Thanks for the replies :)
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i fill a 25 liter barrel i bought of ebay the night before i do my water change drop in a small heater and leave it over night then next day i add it to my tank saves waiting for the kettle
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That is the downside to using a kettle. It takes longer to boil 1.5 litres than it does to carry 2 buckets to the tank and empty them in winter. In summer, the water boils faster than I can keep up with it.
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I tend to fill a bucket with cold water, at the water treatment and leave it sit by a radiator for 24 hours. Whilst I have no scientific basis for this, I feel it gives the water time to settle and the treatment time to take care of the nasties. By putting it by the radiator its usually a fair bit warmer than water from the cold tap. It's never as warm as the tank, but like Richard said, my fish seem to enjoy swimming in the cooler water.
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I'd like to be able to leave a bucket to warm up for 24 hours but with 2 and 4 year old boys I really wouldn't like to think what nasties they'd put in there.... Plus I think the OH might just have something to say about another vessel of water cluttering up the place ;)