Advice on storing/using room temp water for water changes

[mike0605]

Hi everyone,

I currently use treated tap water straight from the tap for my water changes and never had any problems however, I am considering using a water butt to keep water at room temperature and use for water changes mainly to allow me to do larger water changes without affected the temperature too much.

I currrently only have the one four foot tank.

The plan

180 litre water butt filled with tap water and maybe with some bogwood if this helps soften the water slightly? please advise, (any suggestions arre greatly appreciated)

An airstone in the water butt

a heater switched off. after leaving the cold water in the butt for approx 24 hours turn the heater on to the temp I want the water at. At times I may want it at 25 whereas the tank temp maybe 26 or 27 to help start a spawn.

My main concern is I am likely to only use a quarter of the water butt water at most (atm) per 2 days and the plan was to then top the water butt up and leave for 12 - 24 hours to allow the water to warm to room temp then switch the heater on and leave the heater running until a water change is being undertaken.

As I said my concern is that I am topping up water which is going to remain in the butt i.e. not be used does it matter how long water is stored in the water butt? does or can this affect the quality of the water? As the main reason for doing this is to provide the best quality and temp water.

(Atm) I do approx 10 litre water changes straight from the cold water tap after adding tapsafe per day

Could also add a powerhead if that would be required or would help keep the water aerated ready to be added to the tank.

Obviously the plan is to use the water butt water when I have further tanks set up aswell.

Any advice please

Thanks

 

[Joby]

I use water butts at room temperature but they are completely used every 2 days so not topped up. Why can't you just use what you need till the butt is empty and just fill up the day before you need it? 10 litres of water even in a 2 foot tank only makes the temp dip a degree and it soon warms up again. So I don't use a heater in my butts or an airstone or powerhead although do have bogwood in there but thats just what works for me so be interesting to hear how others do it :thumbup:

 

[matubula]

I have a very similar technique to you but I use all the water at the same time. I prefer not to leave it in for several days. Although I don't know of any reason why you can't.

You may also find, depending on your water conditioner, it might start to get expensive. When I first started doing this technique I was using Tetra Aquasafe (5ml per 10l) but that was hideously expensive per barrel full so I switched to Seachem Prime (5ml per 200l), so 20 times cheaper.

 

[mike0605]

What I was thinking was that I didn't want the pump in the water butt to run dry

and I was thinking if the water butt remained full and aerated this would be better than the water from the tap which sits in the mains pipes.

atm the water from the tap is freezing and i won't chence the hot water as it is slightly discoloured coming from the boiler.

thanks

 

[Joby]

I only switch my pump on in the water butt when I'm re-filling tanks, the rest of the time it stays still. You can hear when they pump is getting low on water, the noise changes but I find on a 180 litre butt there is usually 20 litres left when its below water level of pump and 10 litres on a 90 litre water butt

 

[mike0605]

do you just dispose of whats left if not needed and top up with fresh for in two days time?

Thanks

 

[Joby]

Think the longest I've had water in them is 3 days, I've got 12 tanks running and water change most everyday so use 200 litres of water on a full water change day :whistle: so really doesn't compare to what you are planning to do, hopefully someone else does and can come along and advise

 

[JoePlec]

I know someone who only has a 60l tank. He stores 25l with aquasafe for a month. He only does a water change once a month and the water is stored from straight after a water change to a month later when he uses it. He changes 25l a month. His water quality is amazing and his fish breed. I do not see storing water a problem unless its for over a few months.

In my water storage the pump will not drag out the last 2inches of water, i just get the hose and fill it up, i do not empty the 2 inches.

 

[chris oe]

I've been thinking about doing something similar, since water treatment chemicals render the ammonia in chloramine bound up and non-toxic but it is still there, I was thinking I'd run a cycled sponge filter and have a good pile of java moss growing in my water container (butt?) so that the biofilter in the sponge filter would continue to break down the bound chloramine, and the java moss would eat ammonia and nitrate, making the water that much closer to the ideal: chlorine and ammonia free, room temperature water. (of course the trick is, how to tell when the chlorine and ammonia are really all gone. Can't seem to find a chloramine test, not sure how long it takes chloramine to break down into chloramine and ammonia, not sure how long it takes for the bound form left behind by water treatment chemicals to break down. That's where I'm stuck. )

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

since water treatment chemicals render the ammonia in chloramine bound up and non-toxic but it is still there, I was thinking I'd run a cycled sponge filter and have a good pile of java moss growing in my water container (butt?) so that the biofilter in the sponge filter would continue to break down the bound chloramine, and the java moss would eat ammonia and nitrate, making the water that much closer to the ideal: chlorine and ammonia free, room temperature water.

Good idea, Java moss would do, but it wouldn't be ideal as it has a slow growth rate. Assuming you had enough PAR, something like Pistia (Nile Cabbage) would be better (I've got plenty you could have). We used to some work on the biological reclamation of waste water and "phytoremediation" is very effective. I can see a problem with your water container growing algae on the walls etc. however if you had a thick layer of a floater that would reduce this problem.

I think all the water conditioners that deal with chloramine use sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate, (HOCH2SO3Na), which reacts with ammonia (NH3) to form aminomethanesulfonate (H2NCH2SO3). I couldn't find anything about the stability of aminomethansulfonate, but there is quite a bit about methanosulfonate, (which occurs naturally in fairly large amounts) - "Methanesulfonate is used by diverse aerobic bacteria as a source of sulfur for growth". Korden (who make Amquel) say

.....molecule reacts with ammonia to form a non-toxic, stable water-soluble substance which is acted upon by the bacteria in biological filtration.

http://www.novalek.com/kordon/amquel/howamquelworks.htm

cheers Darrel

 

[Zebra Pleco]

Whooooooooooooooooosh away over my head.

 

[chris oe]

Amazing Reply Darrel

Lots of great information here - thanks! And thanks for the offer of the plants - I would take you up on your offer if it weren't the part of the year where everything in the mail freezes here (going to be three months before I'd even trust an insulated box with a warming pack.)- I'll see if I can't find a fast growing floater locally.

Knowing what the chemical compound is helps a bunch. I wonder if I fired off an email to the company themselves if they could tell me anything about how long (and under what circumstances) things break down? I imagine an in house chemist somewhere knows. If I find out anything interesting I'll post it here.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Sorry Chrisoe, I failed to note you were in Minnesota. We've been complaining about our weather (in the UK) because it has been below freezing and we have had some snow, but today it is +10oC and sunny, so I think you probably have a bit more to complain about.

Kordon had to release the details for Amquel, purely because it has a patent,
you could definitely try them for an answer. However they don't give any details for "Amquel plus", which isn't patented.

I'm not a chemist, but there are a few organic/biochemists who work here, and when I asked whether they thought "Prime" etc would work in the same way, they thought that any similar compound should work.

For some more details about the whole "nitrogen/plant/water/microbe/chemical interactions" have a look at this link, from the excellent "Skeptical Aquarist":

Nitrogen Cycle: <http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/nutrient/nitcyc.shtml> The Amquel bit is about 1/2 way down the page (but the whole article is well worth a read).

cheers Darrel