FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I've always had goldfish and just had my water change water at room temp. I was going to get a little heater for the Betta (we leave the window open and sometimes it gets chillier at night) and keep the water at around 75-80 degrees.

If my water change (room temp) water is cooler than that, won't it be hard on the fish? Do I try to heat up the water change water a bit (put a cup of it in the microwave then mix it back in), or am I being overly neurotic?



Thanks for perspectives.....

Melissa

You'll want to get the water for the water changes as close to the tank temperature as possible. The easiest way I have found of doing this is to put your bucket of water for the change in the bathtub or sink with a few inches of HOT water around it and wait for it to come up to temperature. It heats fairly quickly, just stick a thermometer in it so you know when it's warm enough.

Right on. That sounds really reasonable.

Thanks. You people are so clever about all this stuff.....

There is a problem using hot water in older houses that still use copper piping. Its not perfectly safe, but its unlikely to kill the fish in that small amount.

I have heard of people microwaving their water to get around this

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Yeah calla that's why the hot water is in the tub around the bucket and not actually in the bucket itself. I have never used the microwave for heating water for my fish but I have used bioling water from the kettle and honestly, heating with some hot water in the tub is a lot easier and requires much less fiddling.

I have a few buckets that I only use for water changes so I just put cold water in them with any additives I'm using, put them in the bath tub and put a few inches of very hot water in the bottom of the tub to heat them up. While they're heating, I take the bettas out of their tanks and put them in cups, scrub the tanks and do any other cleaning or rearranging. By the time I'm done all of that the water is warm enough (I have a spare thermometer for water changes), so all I have to do is fill the betta tanks and plunk them back in.

For my larger tanks I just put the fish water buckets in the tub to heat up while I siphon, gravel vac, and trim my plants. I have water changes down to a science so I don't have to use more energy than necessary doing them. :88)

[/font]