changing water without changing temperature

[hashbaz]

I'm sorry but this is going to be a long boring post.

I have a 29gal tank and do weekly PWC. I'm concerned about the change in temperature when I add cold water to the tank. My local water supply is supposed to have lots of pesticides and fertilizers in it. Because of this all of the water I put in the tank goes through the 1st 3 stages (activated carbon) of my RO system. The RO system taps straight into the cold water under the sink. So I have only cold water to add to the aquarium. I have tried a few different ways to avoid temperature shocking the fish.

1. nuking some of the water to bring up the temperature. This takes a lot of work and time, and just didn't seem to work very well.

2. adding only a little water at a time. This seems to work decent but leaves the tank half finished for most of Saturday. And I try to leave the water out for a few hours to get up to room temperature. Especially with winter coming (it snowed this morning) room temperature is somewhat less than the tank temperature.

I would like to buy an inline heater and power head (or pump). Then I could heat up a bucket full of water and then pump it straight into the aquarium - this is also easier than trying to pour a bucket into the tank without disturbing it. But this would cost more than my wife is willing to let me spend.

Does anyone else have any ideas for this problem? And my other question is how large of a change in tank temperature is OK? Will only 2 degrees even affect the fish?

Thanks!

[Shultz]

Should have read your post properly! soz....

Cheers Shelton.

[BrianNY]

I would contact your water company and ask for a lab report and chemical analysis. You just might be stressing yourself for nothing.

[hashbaz]

That is an excellent idea Brian! I will have to find out that kind of information. I just remembered once putting the buckets in a hot bathtub. It worked pretty well but I was worried about getting bathroom cleaning chemicals on the aquarium buckets. I think drying off the outsides before dumping them in the aquarium should solve that problem. I think this is what I will do from now on (depending on what the water company analysis has to say).

[BASSNMAN]

Ipurchased a stainless steel soup pot that holds about 3 1/2 gals. It only takes a few minutes to bring the water up to tank temp. The pot is only used for the aquariums.

[Scooby]

I use RO water in all my tanks and my water is normally quite cold....I have a 30 gal plastic drum that I transfer the RO water into with a 300w submersable heater. The water comes up to temp in no time and simply pump the water from the drum to the tank.

Just a thought.you might want to give it a try........

Dave