Waterchanges???

Please people whats the best way to prepare tap water for water changes?

 

My process is as follows: siphon the gravel into a 12l bucket. Empty the bucket. Fill with tap water and add Seachem Prime to remove chlorine and others. Let bucket sit for 15-20 mins and pour in. I don’t worry too much about making sure the temperatures match for the following reasons. This is probably about a 10% water change so not large volume. Also, adding slightly cooler water mimics rainfall and is unlikely to adjust the temperature too much. My tap water is probably around 20 degrees and I’m adding it to tanks which are set at 24.

 

I do the same, except I let the water sit for longer just to be extra safe. But that's probably unnecessary seeing as prime should work well enough

 

Also if you don't have any water conditioner you can let the water stand for a couple days and the chlorine in the tap water naturally breaks down on its own

 

The chlorine will evaporate but not the Chloramines, you still need a conditioner that will remove it.

 

I drain and refill. Takes 15 minutes. This is for a 200l tank , so I do about 30% every 2 weeks . And add de-chlorine from scape .

 

I have a barrel that I fill via bucket while draining the tanks. Add dechlor, let it circulate for 2 minutes then start pumping to the tanks.

 

Not the best way but it's what I've been doing since I started keeping fish. I fill up a 25L drum with tap water and then i leave it exposed to air for 12 to 48 hours. I use gaseous exchange to remove chlorine. I do at least a 25% water change on each of my 3ft tanks every 8 days. Never had any problems yet.

 

I syphon the gravel and drain about 80 to 90% from the display, add Seachem's Aquavitro Alpha which is very concentrated and which removes Chlorine and Chloramine, and fill it up with a hose that runs from my laundry to the tank, connected to the hot and cold taps, matching the temp. But I must add my water quality is very good with no real PH swings.l

 

Be careful of chloramine. Rand water uses chloramine. Much more stable than chlorine. Not sure what other municipalities use.

http://www.randwater.co.za/CorporateResponsibility/WWE/Pages/tapwater.aspx

More difficult to remove chloramine than chlorine.

https://www.thesprucepets.com/remove-chloramines-from-tap-water-2924183

 

I moved over to Safe from Prime a few months ago and haven’t noticed any change to fish health or behavior. For whatever reason I prefer working with powders, so it just goes in with my GH and KH stuff at the same time. I usually age the water a day or two ahead if our CT water supply pH is all over the place, which seems to happen every few months. Otherwise, straight from tap to bucket and let that sit a few minutes before adding to the tank.
These days I don’t change more than 40% at a time though, which helps minimize fluctuations.

 

Apparently Safe doesnt bind heavy metals which Prime does. I have used Prime for years. Now I have Safe which I still need to try but I dont have a measuring spoon the correct size. Seachem is apparently sending me one. Then I also have Organic Aqua which is in liquid form and is supposed to do the same as Prime/Safe. Havent tried it yet either. Will give them a go once the Prime is finished (which will be in a week or 2 - only a few mls left)

 

I have a 1000ltr flowbin circulating water threw a 200ltr drum full of filter media and 3 200ltr drums with bell siphons that I am turning in media beds to grow flowers in. I treat water with alpha day before water change.

 

Brought one of those 30 liter (Which is conveniently half my tank volume) jerry can at plastic land. Drilled a hole on top so I could insert airline tubing for airstone, also got a digital thermometer so I can see what the water temps are like if its too cold before I do a water change I drop in a spare heater to get it up to the same temperature as my tank. The add whatever water conditioner I have. So by the time the water change happens the water is pretty matured.

Also helps as emergency wat for when the water is cut or I need to do a quick water change:

 

Same drum that I use except mine has the tap at the bottom. I just lift it over the tank and open it.

 

On the 500 Liter I simply drain out between 25% and 50% depending on if its summer or winter or how hot its been in summer, so generally 50% in summer 25% in winter, weekly and then fill straight up with tap water. I add about a quarter teaspoon of safe while filling. I have been doing it like this for years and never had issues. Their is so much dilution in big tanks that in my opinion adding tap water straight to the tank is not an issue. I only started using seachem safe a year ago, after I was introduced to it by another hobbyist on the forum. I find seachem safe to be far more cost effective than prime especially with lots of tanks and water changes and I have read that you cannot really overdose with the powder.

In the fish room where I have mainly 30L and 60L tanks, I used to use the bucket method as many do above, but got tired of carrying buckets of water and getting wet all the time etc... so I put in a carbon block and ran RO tubing to each tank with a separate tap on each tank. I was draining manually once a week on each tank and then filling, but I am in the process of finish the semi automated water change system. So each tank gets around a 15% water change daily. I have also since added in a water filter unit 5 stage, that includes a carbon block and I do also dose with safe on each tank by simply premixing the powder (about a tip of a teaspoon) in a 50ml syringe and dosing each tank with about 10ml. These are purely guesstimate amounts that I came up with for my self and have worked for me so far!

BTW, here is an interesting thread to read with regards to Safe/Prime usage etc...
https://www.seachem.com/support/forums/forum/general-discussion/728-seachem-safe

 

@top dog What filter media are you using in the 200Ltr drum?

 

We gravel vac and drain 80/90% of the water and fill up directly from the tap with hot and cold water

The adult fish tanks, i dose Safe, the pup tanks we use Prime due to it binding heavy metals, as a precaution as the little pups are quite sensitive the first 2/3 months