What is aged water

[newcichlid]

Hi

I have read many times that using aged water is better for the fish. What i would like to know is when will water will be classified as aged.

Is it the period of time the water is sitting in the bucket/drum?

Do you need to aerate the water for it to age?

I have been told to keep my water in a 220L drum, add the salt and buffer, aerate till the next water change (weekly), add Safe (or other brands) and heat before water change. In order to save electricity cost and hopefully decrease my WC time on the day, I was thinking of adding the salt and buffer and aerate the water the day before WC, then add SAFE and heat the water just before the water change.

Question, is it the same doing my way compared to aerating the water for the 7days before the next WC

and which pump would I need to pump the water out of the drum and into my tanks.

I currently siphon vac about 25-40% weekly depending on which tank, mix my salt and buffer in a 10L bucket, fill the tank straight from the tap and add in the mix from the bucket and water ager ACN gradually. Then start the whole process again with my second tank. I was thinking of siphon vac both tanks first, then fill it with the treated water in the drum to make it more efficient.

Any comments or answers to my questions. Thank you

Cheers

Eric

[CThompson]

Aged water is basically water that will not stress or kill your fish.

Days gone by water could sit around and the chlorine would naturally disappear as time passed (aged), but today’s water is different in that chloramine is now added which will not go with time. Chloramine will only go with the use of water ager type chemicals which break the ammonia/chlorine bond (which is what chloramine is).

Chlorine is then neutralised by the water ager/conditioner and this can leave behind some ammonia. I've been told the left over ammonia is broken down by the bacteria, so the questions are;

Is the water change barrel cycled (mine certainly is)?

If so how long does it have to sit in the barrel before it's neutralised? (a week)

Is the ammonia level low enough that it can be dealt with by the fish tank's bacteria?

So, to answer your question, provided your water change water is adjusted even the day before is probably fine to do so.

The big trouble is – remembering to turn that darn heater on. I’ve tried doing it the way you suggest only to find a half empty tank (or more) with two-hundred litres of treated but unheated water. A BIG problem in winter.

The amount of extra money it costs to heat 200 litres is negligible to the potential cost of a cold water, water-change in the middle of winter, so my water change containers are heated 24/7.