Beardie Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 gday, i have a 200L barrel around the side of my house which i fill up with water from my hose, leave it for a day or two, add some ph buffer and then pump it through a tube from the barrel through my bedroom window into my tank. However with winter ive found the water is very cold and my temp in the tank drops 3-4 degrees. So now i change less water, less often. Im just wondering what everyone else does as far as water changes goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZ Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 I do mine straight from the tap. I bring a hose to the tank and let it rip I treat the water for Chlorine Chloramine and Ammonia (use prime or similar) as I add the water, and the temp does drop but it's only short-term and the fish do not seem bothered by it. Some are a lot more fussy than this, but it works for me and has done for many years now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graceless Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 Funny you should bring water changes up! that's what i've just done. i'm with Baz - stright out of the tap. if it's only a small one i don't even treat for chlorine as i believe the amounts in canberra water are negligable. none of my fish seem to care about the cold water. at first i was all keen and nice to them, and preheated the water - now - meh - they don't care. should check how that hose is going in my 4 footer grace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Morelia Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 I fill up Buckets with water from the tap as hot as it goes, and leave it until it's about the same temp as the tank, then use prime, swirl it around, wait a few minutes, and put it in. I'm thinking that the hot water will eliminate flukes and ich, and most bacteria. I use about 6-7 buckets for my 3ft and 4ft tanks, and it seems to work, i very rarely have trouble with ich or flukes. I usually try to fill them up after everyone's had a shower in the morning, otherwise the water in the hot water system's not hot enough for evening showers or late at night, and keep everyone awake with water going into buckets.... PSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. PSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. PSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. This works for me. Comments and advice very welcome Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wetfish Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 I have 120 litre barrels which i fill a week prior using a hose in through the window. i add buffers and prime and keep the water airated. They are kept in the fish room for the week and by thaT time they are pretty much up to temp. To get the water out i use a pump and hose. I use the water to water plants! Wetfish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZ Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 Dark Morelia your system sounds like a lot of hard work, and also very expensive using all that hot water Something else to add.... A lot of fish can be triggered to breed by a big/cool water change. I think it has something to do with making them think it is spring. When the warm weather arrives and the snow caps melt, the rivers run cooler. Does that make sense? Anyway whether that theory works or not, it seems to work in my tanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViS Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 Andy, be careful of using hot water if your house has copper hot water pipes. Apparently it can induct some bad stuff into the water. I use 2 x 200 litre water barrels and fill them up, leave with an airstone running in them, add buffers and after 48 - 72 hours trickle them into the system at about one drop per second. The sump has an overflow and all excess water goes outside. The water barrels are up on a table, so they gravity feed into the sump over a period of 24 hours I suppose, sometimes longer. Once they are empty, I refill them. Doing it this way, I get a very gradual water change and it takes about 10 minutes every 4 days in effort to fill the 2 barrels. PS. I hate water changes so this was the easiest option for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 I age my water for at least 3 days but normally one week in 200lt barrels. You should all look at doing this if you can. I have a tap to control the amount of water flow going into each of my 6x2x2 from the mini reef. I turn one completely off and drain all but 20cm or so of water onto the front lawn. I then fill my sump till it is almost over flowing and then turn the tap back on and try to get the input from the storage barrels at the same rate as the 6x2x2 is being filled by the pump. In doing this I try to ensure all the tanks, 4 x 6x2x2, get the fresh and old water returning to their tanks mixed and at the same rate. The temperature change is really minimal. This method of water change makes my male foai go nuts. He loves a water change. If there was a female that was thinking of spawning the water changes soon gets her in the mood for love. With the 10 females I have generally I get one mouthful after every water change. I am sure if I was to full my tanks from the tap while adding ager I would loose these less hardy fish and allot of fry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brett4Perth Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 Nice system Andy, adding it slowly is certainly the way to go if you can manage it. No need to worry about temperature, Ph swings, etc. Now all I need to do is convince my wife I need a 200l container for water in the lounge room!!! Dark Morelia, if you are using scheme water it has already been treated to kill organisms so there will be no flukes, ich or bacteria in it. Cheers, Brett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Morelia Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 If that's the case, then why is it that when i used normal tap water, i often get an ich or gill fluke infestation ? I've never had a problem when using the hot water method, but if i put water changes off too long and need to do a 50% or bigger change and i use tap water, i nearly always get ich and flukes, and i know they can't possibly have been on the fish beforehand, as i treated the tank and fish for both before adding tap water. Any more suggestions ? Perhaps they're not really scratching on rocks and shaking their heads because of parasites, maybe they're doing it because of new water conditions ? hmmmm....... They usually keep doing it until i can't take it any more and treat the tank, then it stops. They're due for a change, so i'll try putting straight tapwater in, and i won't treat them, and see what happens. Oh, and thanks for the advice about the pipes Andy, i'll look into it. I usually do a complete 100% change once a year, put the fish in another tank, so i doubt anything could build up too much, but it's best to be safe. Is it just me, or are there too many Andys on this forum ? Andy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViS Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 The reason they are scratching is not because of flukes, but because their sensitive gills are being "burnt" by the chloramine of the tap water most likely and they are attempting to relieve themselves by scratching their gills on the rocks. You either are not conditioning the water enough or the pH difference is too much. The reason you are getting ich is because of the temperature drop of adding the new water combined with adding some unconditioned water. Ich thrives on cooler water and fish that have a temprary lower resistance to infection, which will be caused by adding water that has not been aged correctly. If you insist on using tap water, just trickle it in over an hour or two and use more conditioner than the bottle recommends. Add a few drops every 10 minutes while the tank is refilling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducksta Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 Also remember, if you are treating the water in the tank, and not before it goes in, you must treat the entire tank volume. So if your doing a 60L change on a 300L tank, thats a full dose for 300L. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gutty Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 hmmm, i used to use the barrel and age method but now do em straight from the tap. I even have a U shaped peice fo pipe with a on/off valve for the job. It's just too easy. Turn tap on until water comes out U pipe, turn valve to off position and disconnect tap from mains, hang U pipe in tank and turn valve on. It'll syphon(no sucking required) until the U pipe starts sucking air so make this the right length for your average water change. Turn valve off, go outside and hook hose up to mains again and turn tap on. Back inside turn valve to on position and fill her up. I add water ager as it fills. I also turn all filters off while doing this and leave them off for a couple of minutes to let the water ager do it's thing. This reduces the chance of pumping chlorinated water through your bio medium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducksta Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 Oh and I will mention, much like Gutty and Baz, I pump water out onto the garden, then drop the hose in the tank and add good quality conditioners as it fills. As cheap and lazy as I am, I wouldn't play with cheap and nasty conditioners, I think the quality ones are my saviour in allowing me to do changes the lazt way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Morelia Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Re: Andy's reply I always fill it back up and then treat with Prime for the whole tank volume, when i use it from the tap. I always overdose a bit. As to the ich... If i've already cranked the tank up to 28º-30ºC for 6 days and treated with Protozin each of those 6 days, then where is the ich coming from if not the tap water ? I'm very pedantic to 'hotwater' everything that goes into the tanks, or things that get washed and put back in. Maybe it IS Ph difference. So why don't they scratch when i use the hotwater/bucket method ? maybe the Ph from the hotwater tank is sufficiently different to that of tapwater that it causes the irritation ? Andy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 G'day all I used to do water changes straight from the tap. Then one day I lost about 300 presold 5-8 cm Bristlies. All I did was replace about 10% of the water. (I had been steadily removing water from the tank for about three days prior.) Over the next 9-10 days I watched as all but 8 BN's slowly died. I tried absolutely everything to save these guys. One moment they were hanging on the glass and the next they were dead and floating down to the bottom of the tank. That day I swore I would never do water changes straight from the tap! Now I use 200 liter drums and age the water for a week. (Air bubbler and Prime, then wait). On tender species I heat the water using a couple of old heaters that don't want to turn off anymore. When the the week is over and the water changes are due I use a powerhead connected to a pipe and just pump the water straight in. OH yes and I directly connect my gravel syphon to my garden hose, and place it on the front lawn. PS Copper is very bad for Catfish / Bristlies!!! Hence you really should not be using hot water, if you can??? Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.s Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Andy, I like the sound of your method of water changing, suits my laziness too Just wondering how you go about syphoning the waste out of you substrate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZ Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Gutty, I use the exact same system. Works a treat! J.S, some people don't need to do this. I never do it as I use a thin layer of sand instead of a deep layer of chunky gravel. I also do not over-feed my fish as a rule, and if I do the food cannot sink into a thin layer of fine substrate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViS Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 j.s, I've never vacuumed my tanks in the past 3 years at least and there is no waste at all in any of the tanks. I don't have much in the way of substrate though which helps. I have maybe 5 litres of beach sand in each 4x2 or 6x2 tank. The foam is spraypainted brown, black, green and yellow to simulate substrate for the fish where the glass gets exposed. Each tank has a large airstone for water movement and all tanks empty into a large bioball tower and then into a big sump. As I said before, I'm not a big fan of spending hours upon hours maintaining tanks, so I designed it so I'd only need to feed them once a day and do a water change twice a week. All up I'd spend 3 hours a week feeding them and 1 hour a week on maintenance on a 3,500 litre system (soon to be over 4000 litres). I also skimp on food a bit. Many people overfeed their tanks so the waste is half fish waste and half leftover food. I feed my fish enough to keep them looking healthy (no hollow bellies) and no more. I get plenty of fry and no deaths other than old age or aggression, so my system works for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hungsta Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 very lazy methods can u guys tell me what pump is adequate for pumping water out of a barrel and into the tank? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViS Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Most people use a powerhead or small sump pump. About 1500 - 2000 lph should do the trick, depending on the height you have to pump it up to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hungsta Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Thanx andy cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.s Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Andy, Im thinking of setting my fishroom up similar to yours, im sold on the drip by drip water changing On question, what are the power costs like for the pump that runs your sump filter system? I'm looking at maybe setting up about 12000 litres (i might be dreamin but lets assume i can pull it off), so i'd imagine i'd need a pretty powerful pump. Do you think the power costs for running the central filtration will be too high compared to just running an air driven filter system? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViS Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 If I was doing a room that size, I'd be looking at something loke a big onga pump or similar. You can get large volume pumps that only draw a couple of hundred watts that should be able to service that sort of volume. Best bet is to talk to a pump supply / irrigation place for their recommendations and hen shop around for the best prices. A lot of the low wattage high volume pumps are inline and not submersible. You'd be looking at $1000 I suppose for something that capacity, but the low wattage draw would pay for itself over a couple of years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.s Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Cheers Andy, What flow rate should I be aiming for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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