Rant about leaving water sitting out to be safe for fish

I hate when people use the myth that leaving out water for 24 hours will make it magically safe for fish to swim in. true, it gets rid of chlorine, but not chloramine heavy metals, or in some cases ammonia. That's why you should have water conditioner with you

 

agreed, you need to use something like prime or stress coat to make the water safe. letting it sit does nothing but get rid of clohrine, water does not age and get better with age.

 

I was poor last month and couldn't do my WC's in my betta tanks because I had no more conditioner, and someone told me "That's no excuse, you should have put water out for 24 hours and used it."

 

It'll depend hugely on your location's water. The entire reason chloramine gets used in tap water is because chlorine evaporates out of it within 24 hours. Chloramine will eventually evaporate out too, but it takes ...I don't know how long it takes. I've heard a week, I've heard longer. OP is right, there's too much other stuff in water that doesn't evaporate. Mineral salts being another example. I'd be concerned about leaving water out to age for too long, and without the chlorine, non-beneficial bacteria colonizes the thing. I'm being overly cautious on that concern though.

Basic lesson: know your water before deciding how to treat it. Sorry someone told you off like that Xshainax.

 

I managed to find a bottle of Amquel+ which is almost gone in my closet. I changed the water immediately, but one of my betta's probably won't make it due to my inability to afford water conditioner

 

...um... a month without water changes is unhealthy, but it should not be deadly unless there's something seriously wrong somewhere...

Are you seeing symptoms of illness in your betta?

How much are you feeding, and how often?

What kind of filtration do you have going?

 

He has been sickly ever since I got him in July so maybe his immune system wasn't strong. I feed my betta's twice daily and give them 2 pellets in the morning and 2 at night. As for filtration, I don't have any except in my 6.6 gallon and 29 gallon. The smaller ones get 50% WC's twice a week. The 6.6 gallon 50% every two weeks, and the 29 gallon 10% weekly and 25% once a month. My other betta's are healthy. One has a bubblenest even. I pride myself with my betta keeping, but August was horrible with money and I couldn't afford anything for my betta's. I feel so horrible in knowing I failed them.

 

If you absolutely cannot perform water changes with new water due to lack of conditioners, and your filtered tanks can take a bit of a water level drop, consider using tank water from those in the stagnant tiny tanks. It'll mean higher nitrates but since the small tanks aren't going to be cycled without filter, this may still be an improvement.
It may mean introducing anything from the big tanks into the small ones disease-wise, but if the risk is smaller than that of an ammonia-saturated betta tank, I'd still consider it. Just keep in mind the temperature differences between aquariums and adjust the 'new' water for pH as much as able, like always.

 

I leave water out AND use conditioner. I like to leave it out to come to temperature, and having it already in my jugs makes the change easier on me.

 

I figured out why one is barely clinging to life. I was using pledge to dust my shelf where I keep one kind of betta pellets are kept. The pledge particles must've got into the food and when I fed him, he got poisoned. That explains why he went to spunky betta when I went to bed to near dead when I woke up. He seems a bit better though, so I am cautiously optimistic.

 

Oh dear, contaminants!

I had a similar issue with VERY itchy fish due to either hair spray or oldspice, one of the two was somehow able to get a tiny amount into my tank despite both a good lid and fair distance. Lesson learned, do not use aerosols of any sort in the same room as your tank, even if you're careful with them.

Isn't pledge that wood-polish surface-cleaning stuff? I seem to recall my brothers and I using it on our toboggans to make them slippier on snow hills. ...and that one time my brother sprayed his sock and accidentally made deadly frictionless spots on the staircase. If it's the same stuff - YES IT GETS EVERYWHERE I would totally believe it a plausible cause.

 

Oh dear, contaminants!

I had a similar issue with VERY itchy fish due to either hair spray or oldspice, one of the two was somehow able to get a tiny amount into my tank despite both a good lid and fair distance. Lesson learned, do not use aerosols of any sort in the same room as your tank, even if you're careful with them.

Isn't pledge that wood-polish surface-cleaning stuff? I seem to recall my brothers and I using it on our toboggans to make them slippier on snow hills. ...and that one time my brother sprayed his sock and accidentally made deadly frictionless spots on the staircase. If it's the same stuff - YES IT GETS EVERYWHERE I would totally believe it a plausible cause.

I used perfume kind of close to my tank the night the guppy died.... is it possible that maybe.... oh gosh.

 

My apartment is set up so that my bathroom is between the living room and bedroom (both of which have fish tanks in them) and given that I have no AC, I leave my windows open to get some air flow. Which means my air is going all over the place all the time. I spray perfume all the time with no issues.

Then again, maybe it's just not escaping the bathroom in enough quantity to hurt my fish.

 

Sorry to scare you aquatic1 ... there's a pretty good chance with hairspray that it was all over my fingers and I didn't rinse my hands well. I'm not sure if such a contaminant could kill a guppy overnight but that is sad news to hear.
I am only like 80% sure that's what happened for me so my rationale is far better safe than sorry :c

 

Well, he survived the night. I am still cautiously optimistic that he might survive. And yeah, Pledge is the wood polishing stuff

 

I unfortunately believed this myth when I was a kid, mainly because that's what I was told at the big chain pet stores and the smaller LFS. I don't think I ever used a water conditioner, ever. I had 2 common goldfish in a bowl that I just did 100% water changes on using the "let it sit out" method" and also had a 20 gallon community (bad community - dwarf gouramis, pleco, betta...need I go on?) that I never used any conditioner in or cycled - all on the advice of the LFS.

Needless to say, I knew something was wrong with those so I went hunting online for my new tank and found Fishlore. I'm so glad I did!

 

There's always spring water, especially for small tanks.