Water change after boil water advisory

[Shana0310]

I live in Columbia SC where we've had a lot of flooding recently. My area was on a boil water advisory that ended Friday.
Much of the city is still having to boil. I'm a little nervous about doing a water change. Is there an amount of time I should wait?


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[brennae]

That's scary. We flooded here in northern Indiana once and had to evacuate and it was awful. Can you feasibly do small water changes with boiled water? I always worry about boil advisories being lifted. I always think there are still parasites. Which there could be anyway. In my town the well for my neighborhood had some kind of fly larva in it. Guess we all got extra protein for a bit. You couldn't see the larva but it could have been really small and what if pieces of who knows what was in the water. If you know someone with a microscope that would be handy. I'd run all the liquid tests first no matter what you do because the Ph could have changed. Sorry this happened. Good luck and may the force be with you and all that.

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[J.Mcpeak]

Be careful with the KH.
Boiling water removes the temporary hardness.

If you're not overstocked you can leave it a week/10 days without major issues. Just cut down on the feeding. This does depend on how long you leave it before you change water though! If you're on the ball with everything (tip top condition) you shouldn't have any problems waiting it out. Also it depends what you keep and how sensitive they are. . .

 

[brennae]

Glad you chimed in with the KH. I didn't know boiling had an effect as I'm not very good with chemistry.

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[J.Mcpeak]

Yeah, it's the reason why kettles fill up with chalk deposits.

Guess how I learned that, the hard way! Fortunately it was as a beginner and I was still testing regular, so, no harm was done.
I'm no good at chemistry! I have learned some stuff along the way, the bits I need as I go along.

I'm trying to learn it now, I'm stuck on chemical equations.
I should've tried harder at school!

 

[Shana0310]

Luckily we were spared in my area. Minimal damage and we were only without water a few days.

Actually I'd done a hefty water change two days before the storm. Of course Kh is the one test kit I don't have. API should really include that one with the kit. I have some old test strips that test it but I guess like the others they aren't very accurate. I have a goldfish, community, and Betta tank. I've got a hospital tank that would be the one that needs it the most. I may try to do a small water change with that one. It's only 5 gallons so I could use bottled water. I'll test the tap and bottled just to be sure.

Thanks for the help. I wonder if I should wait til the water advisory is over for the entire area before resuming my usual water change routine.


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