How long do I leave the tap safe water before doing water change?

Question

Just about to do a partial water change to my fish tank. I was just wondering how long I should leave the tap safe water before doing a water change. ta

Answer 1

Well, you can let it sit for about a day to allow the Chlorine to evaporate.
However, many municipalities now put Chrloramines, and traces of heavy metals, into their tap water. No amount of time will evaporate chrloramines and heavy metals which are, while not as deadly as chrlorine, toxic, and will have longterm detrimental effects on your fish. I suggest you use a water conditioner like Amquel or Stresscoat, which will neutralize all those nasty toxins.

Answer 2

As long as temperature is close to the tank's and you use a complete water conditioner there is no reason to age water. I perform 25-50% water changes weekly using a Python-like device, that is a hose straight from the tap to the tank. I match the temperature by mixing hot and cold tap water and I add Tetra AqauSafe to the tank both before and after having refilled it ... Never had a problem.

Letting the water sit may be required for those who don't have hot water or are using well or RO water that is only cold. Letting it sit will also dissipate chlorine for those not using a water conditioner, but these days with heavy metals and chloramine contents it's risky to not use a complete water conditioner.

Tap water being under pressure initially contains higher concentrations of oxygen and CO2 than water in the tank. This dissipates quite quickly and unless you are changing more than 50% of the water it should be of no importance to you. The biggest change that occurs is a slight rise in PH as CO2 outgasses from the tap water. Not enough to require a resting period.

Hope that helps

Answer 3

If you use dechlorinator then you don't need to age it at all - simply estimate the temperature out of the tap, add dechlorinator, and pour it all into the tank. There's no need to over complicate the matter for a couple of reasons:

1. Dechlorinators work instantly

2. Temperature doesn't need to be perfect. You are only doing a partial water change, and the smaller portion you add will heat up more quickly then the larger portion already in the tank - the end result is extremely little temperature change even if you add cool water (if you don't believe me just try it)

3. The only other reason you would need to let the water wait is to aerate it, but to do this you would need to run an air stone in it for the time you are resting the water. Again, because we are changing just a portion of the water, we don't have to worry about this - the tank is already aerated and the new water will catch up quickly.

Answer 4

I would have to agree with Tuvix72. I also use a PYTHON and add straight from the tap. I change 50% water in all my tanks, 1 time a week(about 350 gallons). Tanks range from 10g to 125g. As Tuvix uses a different product, let me recommend PRIME as a water conditioner. It is excellent and goes alot further than most products(I don't sell it LOL). Ive been doing this for years. The key as stated before is to get the water temp close to the tank temp. My house is very old(with copper pipes) and have seen no ill effects with using hot+cold water to refill the tanks.

Answer 5

You can contact your water company for advice on this. A lot of people are switching to bottled water because of heavy metals, the cheap stuff from the supermarket is usually ok, but again its best to pick one with an analysis printed on the bottle or contact the company to ask them whats in their water.

If your tap water is clean, then 24 hours in a clean bucket with an airstone will drive off all the chlorine. Adding chemicals to the water stressess fish; even if those chemicals are there to drive off chlorine.
The chlorine is present as a gas and will disperse after 24 hours. The chemicals you add to get rid of it stay there.
Its the metals you want to avoid.

Answer 6

To take chlorine out of water you can boil it or leave it for 24 hours. Or you can use chemicals made for this.

After you have done that and have a tank set up you should only need to do about a 25% water change a week.

Answer 7

If your tank is tropical ( warm water) then just warm it up close as you can to the temperature of the water in the tank, you can do this by just making the tap water warmer. I would leave it sit for like 2-3 minutes just to make sure the chlorine is all removed, if you use chlor-X, or whatever it's called, then it takes a matter of seconds, just make sure the temperature is as close to the tank water as humanly possible.

Answer 8

Best do it instantly by using a proprietary dechlorinator. King British is a good one. These dechlorinators contain Sodium Thiosulphate which, as well as neutralising the chlorine, breaks the chlorine bond of the Chloramine which the water company may have added. This will release a small amount of Ammonium into the tank water, but should be dealt with by your filter.

Answer 9

once you're gravel vacuuming it incredibly is superb to basically do a million/2 one week and the subsequent time you're cleansing the gravel to scrub the different a million/2. that still facilitates your organic and organic clear out for the reason that too lots good micro organism could be bumped off in case you do it without warning. as far because of the fact the faucet is going in case you employ water conditioner only upload it back. otherwise, enable the water sit down out over night so the chlorine and chloramines get evaporated. those 2 chemical ingredients can kill fish and your organic and organic micro organism.

Answer 10

I had goldfishes....they lived for 5 years and I always did a full water change each time I cleaned their tank.....I let the water stand for 1 hour and added treatment so they would not get shocked...they lived a long time!