Water advice during water change

Currently, when doing a water change, I use water directly from the outside tap (can’t use inside taps because I have a water softener) and mix with boiling kettle water to bring it to the right temperature.

I’ve heard a couple of alternative ways of doing this and wanted to confirm their validity

• Leaving the tap water for a few days. I’ve heard that leaving the tap water for a few days will heat it up a bit (obviously) but will also help remove some of the nasty stuff before adding to my tank. Is this true or will the water go stagnant and be worse?
• Using a water butt. Apparently rain water is fine to use in a tank and I was considering getting/using a water butt instead of tap water. Is this a good idea?

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

Leaving water to stand will allow chlorine and carbon dioxide to gas off, but personally I would just use a dechlorinator for ease and speed so you can add it straight in.

You can use rainwater but a lot will depend on how it is collected and pollution levels. Pretty sure Ouse is close to where you are and explored this option - found it wasn’t worthwhile in the end if i recall correctly.

 

Leaving water to stand will allow chlorine and carbon dioxide to gas off, but personally I would just use a dechlorinator for ease and speed so you can add it straight in.

I use a sachem water treatment that I believe helps treat the chlorine etc, so sounds like there isn’t much benefit to leaving it anyway?

You can use rainwater but a lot will depend on how it is collected and pollution levels. Pretty sure Ouse is close to where you are and explored this option - found it wasn’t worthwhile in the end if i recall correctly.

Yeah Ouse sounds familiar! When you say worthwhile, you mean you’d have to treat it with something else before it’s usable? I’ll be honest and admit the main motivation for using rain water was to cut down a bit on the water bill, but not if it’s going to be any way harmful to my fish.

Thanks carsonsgjs

Edit: I thought you meant the river Ouse, which is apparently not near me, not the user Ouse, who is in the same area.

Edit 2: which now makes my return questions invalid, as I thought you were saying you’d explored them. I need coffee, or sleep, or both.

 

For an outside tap first I’d test it. Next if good id add it to a new garbage pail with a heater in it. Age this water for at least 24hours. This will remove chlorine and get the temp to match the tank. If your outside tap has a heater and hot and cold water and tests good you could just add an under counter water filter to it an run right into tank.

 

If I had to get my water from an outdoor spigot I would put the water change water in a big container. I would run a heater and an airstone in this container. I would still add my water conditioner to the water to make sure all chlorine is removed. I would fill the container with water at least 24 hours before the water change. This way the temp should be the same as the tanks water if the heater is set to the same level.

To be honest though. This actually sounds like more work than just heating up a kettle of water. Warming up the water in the big container can be done quickly and easily by just adding enough hot water to get it up to temp.

As dry as it has been in my part of the world catching rain water wouldn't be an option for me. We can often go a month or more without rain so depending on it for enough water to do my weekly water changes isn't an option. To be perfectly honest I trust the water coming from my tap more than i would trust rain water. Too many things free floating in the air.

Tap water may be more expensive for others than it is here but the 120 or so gallons of water I use each month really doesn't add much to our water bill.

 

If I had to get my water from an outdoor spigot I would put the water change water in a big container. I would run a heater and an airstone in this container. I would still add my water conditioner to the water to make sure all chlorine is removed. I would fill the container with water at least 24 hours before the water change. This way the temp should be the same as the tanks water if the heater is set to the same level.

I actually have a spare heater; I'd just need to find something big enough for my water changes (currently use 25L containers). I'll look into it thank you!

To be honest though. This actually sounds like more work than just heating up a kettle of water. Warming up the water in the big container can be done quickly and easily by just adding enough hot water to get it up to temp.

Yeah, this is what we currently do haha. Have a "designated" kettle for water changes.

As dry as it has been in my part of the world catching rain water wouldn't be an option for me. We can often go a month or more without rain so depending on it for enough water to do my weekly water changes isn't an option.

There's a lot of bad things you can say about the UK, but lack of rain certainly isn't one of them

To be perfectly honest I trust the water coming from my tap more than i would trust rain water. Too many things free floating in the air.

Ah ok, make sense

Tap water may be more expensive for others than it is here but the 120 or so gallons of water I use each month really doesn't add much to our water bill.

Decided to actually have a look and see if I could get a rough estimate. Looks like it costs about £0.0016 per litre so, yeah, not even worth thinking.


Thanks mattgirl

 

chloramine won't gass off. so you'll still need to use Prime.

 

chloramine won't gass off. so you'll still need to use Prime.

Not necessarily Prime but definitely a water conditioner if chloramine is in the water instead of just chlorine.

 

I would not use rainwater unless you have a good reason to lower the PH.

 

I’m going to stick with using tap water thanks all.