The Best Way To Prep Water For An Aquarium? 

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I live in Sweden. My water is not the best, but it isn't bad, by any stretch of imagination. Since I have an apartment, and not a house, options can get limited. I literally fill my bath tub with water, add some water conditioner to it, and then do water changes in my tanks, until I run out of water in the bath tub. I just plonk a submersible pump into a tank, drain tank water into a sink, then switch places, but put the pump into a bath tub instead. Process can be easily replicated. I used to use a thermometer, but after a while, I really got used to how warm the water in the tank feels. That's how I judge my water temperature now for the water that goes into the bath tub, and it's always within 0.5-1 C off of the tank water. So it's safe. No fish are ever dying in the process, all seem happy, including the plants, shrimp, snails etc. I stopped fussing over details and just get it done. I save tons of time and the process has become far more enjoyable.

So sorry about your injury. Sending healing hugs.

Are you ok Lisa ? That looked nasty 😱

Ouch! Hope you get to feeling better! And great advice as usual. I always just run water from my sink with my python and try to get the temperature as close as I can

I felt that fall in the uk lisa,hope you heal well and quick! I just fill a bucket up,fill it with water and water treatment and give it a good swirl,after ten mins in it goes

The thing about people who have sworn by something for decades is that if conditions change, then the process likely needs to change as well. Fifty years ago, the only additive in your municipal tap water was likely to be chlorine, which will gas off relatively quickly. However, more recently many places have started adding chloramine to water as well. For municipalities, the advantage of chloramine is that it's more stable than chlorine and won't break down for several weeks. You can probably see the problem already, but it's actually worse. Chloramine doesn't evaporate like chlorine does; instead, it breaks down into its two primary components: chlorine and ammonia. So now we have something that won't break down in the amount of time most people are willing to wait, will kill your beneficial bacteria, and then, when it does break down, will cause an ammonia spike.

Oh no 🫢. I was so relieved to see that was John driving by and he came to the rescue. I wish you a speedy recovery.

Oh no! Lisa I hope you're ok ❤ I've done almost all of the methods at some point in my fish keeping journey 😅 another great video.

Oh no!! That’s a hard fall. Hope you heal up quick.

Here is a tip: if you only keep nanotanks (approx 10gal / 38l or smaller) and you want to lower levels of chlorine, GH, KH, pH and possibly ammonia and nitrates (I don’t have any in my tap water so I cannot attest to that) you can simply collect water from your regular Brita filtering kettle. What I do is one day prior a water change I put a bucket in my kitchen and pour the filtered water into it whenever I pass the kettle. I takes no extra time and because it is a gradual process temperature of the fresh water is almost the same as in the aquarium by the time I’m done (I live in an apartment and the temperature in all rooms is pretty much the same). Granted this method is only suitable for small tanks as it would take forever to collect water like this for large ones :)

Holy Crap!!!! Hope you feel better soon. John is our hero, too!

I hope you are not injured, always healthy friends, good luck, I'm from Indonesia 🇮🇩🇮🇩🙏

Sorry to see that Lisa hope you get better soon. Ok I use rain water where I’m from in Barbados.

Perfect common sense video. Yep. 50 years ago, when chlorine was used in the water, I used to let the water sit for 24 hours. No RU-vid back then to learn other ways or share info like now. Anybody worried about it needs to take a test strip to see if their water even has chlorine in it. Should be doing that periodically anyway to know if their water changes. Mine doesn’t have chlorine so letting it sit for 24 hours is a waste of time. My water does have chloramine which we know never gases off. Simple to just used a water conditioner. And like I heard your husband say, doesn’t matter if it goes in before or after adding new water. Someone said use a vitamin C tab to take out chloramine. Haven’t tried it. My faucet has separate knobs for hot and cold so I run the water into a bucket, adjust the temperature close to what the aquarium is (always about 4 degrees cooler than the aquarium) so I don’t cook my fish, then use a little pool pump to push it from the bucket to the aquariums. Easy. The water I syphon out runs into my flower bed cause why not. My foot has twisted like that. Not pretty. Feel better soon. Ice it if it’s still bothering you.

Sorry about your fall, but on a brighter note you guys have a beautiful home!

I run a hose from my sink to my tank, i guess on the temp by touching the water, i usually add it a bit colder. I add a water conditioner while it's filling, i Have never had a problem with it. In my tanks the less i mess with them, the less problems i have. I do a water change about every 2 weeks. And "clean" my filter every month or two. That's just me though obviously my situation is not the same as everybodys elses. Im lucky enough to live someplace with really good city water.

OMG! Shades of my past. I was carrying a large computer into the family room and I missed the last step. After 3 days of people saying I had no broken bones my specialist finally said I broke the main load-bearing bone in my ankle. Hope all goes well for you!!!! BTW ... water changes almost always make my fish pop up in color, excitement, and sometimes babies.

I am so sorry Lisa, I hope you get better soon. 🥰

Take care and rest. Hope you feel better soon.

RO water is nice, but unless I setup a salt-water tank, go for some sensitive shrimp or decide to breed some tetras, my tap water is sufficient. It's rather hard for tap water, the conductivity meter shows 270 ppm. I use "dechlorinator" and bacteria when doing a water change. I had cherry shrimps dying if I used the bucket method, even if I changed 25 % of water. These products seem to neutralized more than just chlorine (or maybe it was bacteria).

Oh my goodness, take care of yourself. Great topic today. I'm the treat the tank, run water over my hand to temp, just slightly cool, then stick the hose in the tank and carry on type. Done it this way for years. Thank you and be careful.

I use normal filtered water with kitchen filter for my aquarium, I think it is simplest. Installing water filter does not cost too much.. the only thing the filter real do is removing small particles using fine-grained 1 micron sponge and pass all water through active carbon which removes chlorine. I also have then 3d stage which pass water through resin and removes heavy metals. That's it. During the summer I use water as it is, during winter I first fill my water canisters 1 days before water change so that it takes room temperature.

Oh Lisa that looked sore. I hope it heals quickly ♥️

I see the klutz is strong with this one, I know the feeling. Fractured my Tibia coming off the step. I do a modification to the list. I have 4 small tanks and no sink near them. I have jugs I bought when setting up the tanks and fill them up with water, add prime, let them sit. On water change day I do two tanks. Then refill and repeat the next day. If/When get a lager tank, then I will look into a python with a long hose to reach the sink. I use alt least one jug of precondition water then add the rest. Overall water change is 30 minutes of two days. I can live with that. 1 hour if it is filter cleaning weekend.

Yikes. Ouchie. That was quite a tumble. I would say that was a 10 on form and endurance as my pawpaw use to say. But seriously Wishing you much healing soon. John was in right place, right time greatfully. I'm always concerned about water here in H. Texas. They flush the hydrants often. I keep a Britta spout pitcher for water in my fridge for my furbabies. I've thought about getting a couple Britta filters for fish water but haven't. I just use the prime drops as directed with each water change before I put water in tanks. I filled up my patio pond once with outdoor hose and got distracted and was a couple hours before I panicked remembering to go back out and add decloranator. They survived. But I felt horrible and they didn't get chlorine burn thank goodness. But I'm more careful now. We won't drink water except out of the fridge. I won't buy bottled water except to store for emergencies. Thankyou for your videos. I always learn something. Hope you feel better soon

I use a hose from my sink and top off and add prime and call it a day it’s been good to me for a long time

Lisa, Great video I appreciate this a lot. So sorry about your fall it looked like it hurt yikes. I actually just did a water change on my 90 gal and i just used my new hyger pump to drain down 75 percent of the water and than i switched the ends and filled up my bath tub with almost the same temp as the tank and re pumped the water back in. I add Prime before i add the water back in and i just dose it for the size of tank. that way as water gets added back in the prime is there to take the chlorine out and other stuff. The pump works great and I have a curved return that has a valve to turn the water on and off. it hangs on the side of the tank no mess what so ever. i used to do it bucket by bucket. that is a lot of water to move lol. you guys have even bigger tanks. No need to store the water or mix it prior to going in. I use the same method John does dose with water conditioner for the tank size and put the water in. the big cichlids get kid of nervous lol.

I hope that you're okay from your fall.

I like using a water conditioner with a chelating agent that locks up free metal ions. I use Tetra AquaSafe + and have always had good luck. Metals are the worst thing to have in your tank, especially if you have invertibrates like freshwater shrimp, metals like Copper are Kyryptonite to inverts.

Ouch, I sure hope your ok and didn’t break any bones, great video as always

I only have a 29-gallon tank, but always keep a 5-gallon bucket of prepped water ready for an emergency, I only keep it for 3 days and then use it for watering plants, prepped means treated with a declorinator, When adding to the tank I add the appropriate amount of Fritz Emzyme

I live in The Netherlands our water is clean enough to just pour it straight onto the fishtank without conditioner. I still use conditioner though.

This was a video I needed lol. I buy my water. I want to make my own, but I'm terrified of doing it since I live in the city and the chlorine level changes.

Ouch, I hope that was not as bad as it looked. I adjust temperatures to do, as you said, trigger my bristlenose to breed. Great video

I have city water where I live and I just use a very small amount of an additive to take care of the hard water and chlorine. My betta looks like yours at 4:35. I call him Norman. 😊

I live on the west coast of Florida. During the heat of summer my tap water is 86° because my pipes aren't buried deep. I have fried a couple of guppies using the water straight out of the tap. Now I let it sit overnight to cool it down in the A/C. Cooler is better than hot unless you have Discus.

So is it safe to store treated tap water in a sealed container for extended periods of time or is there a chance it can grow bacteria or something. Also would adding something like Fritz dark water cause something to grow?

Could you guys do a eel care video

I have a 10 gallon aquarium that no matter what I’ve done so far the water is slightly cloudy! Any suggestions?

Good video. Hope your ankle feels better soon. Seriously considering my first betta....keeping an eye on your inventory. Thanks

Back in the day when only chlorine was used to disinfect water for sure you could leave it for a day or 2 and gas it off the old timers are correct with this fact ,However the advent of chloramine to disinfect water is a whole new ball game it is more stable and doesn't gas of as readily as chlorine if at all which is why imho if you are using tap water a water conditioner is a must

We were watching the video and our first reaction was "He just drove right past her!!" Glad it wasn't serious, considering your history it could have been a lot worse. Feel better soon.

So did John crack the, "I've fallen and I can't get up!" Jokes yet? 😂😂

Luckily we've had pretty good water last few decades and yes I've stored water for a couple days or two for it to gas out chlorine and it does work. After moving 1900+ couple years ago the water is totally over chlorinated so I've gone back to storing water for gas off. Its saving my plants so I'll keep on doing it.... just need to make up a bigger system and get rid of all the one gallon jugs I have. Buying fish store water is good for salt, not necessarily needed for fresh unless you have crap water. Distilled is fine if you need to mix, but if you must buy distilled just spend the money and go for RO and be done with it, get some drums or totes so you'll have it on hand ready to mix when you're ready to.

Running municipal water directly from the tap to your tank is safe as long as you immediately treat the tank with dechlorinators like Prime as it acts very fast to break the chemical bonds in the Na molecules. But chlorine will burn your fishs' gills as well as kill your biological filter. Also many municipalities like my own use chloramines not just clorine anymore which only a few decholinators will affect and it takes a few more seconds for even Prime to pacify. Personally I have a holding tank to pretreat and heat my water which I refill from the faucet with my Python hose and treat after each water change. Then I have a small pump with hose I use after removing dirty water to refill from the holding tank. I never have to lug a bucket and my wife is happy with no more spills on the carpet 😁

Thank you for the info

Good points Lisa. The tap water is fine. I have done it for 30 years. I hope your ok bad fall! 😓

Your fall looked terrible but I am glad you are ok.

Heal up soon Lisa! I think I need to pre-temp my water here, because during the summer it comes out of the tap at 100°

Thank you for the info I was raised up with a aquarium my stepdad showed me how to clean the tank and make sure that the temperature is just right you don't want to put your fish in shock

Thanks for answering that question for me. 😎

What about using distilled water to soften a very hard tap water?

Thank you Lisa! I'm glad to see you up and around at Aquashella!

The 24 hours to off gas chlorine only works if you have chlorine. If your water has chloaramine, it won't off gas. For my small tanks, I do dechlorinator in a bucket. I put it in before the water so the force from the faucet mixes it all up. It usually sits a couple minutes. For my big tank. I dose dechlorinator for the total volume, and just run a hose from the shower

I agree with all of this. Used to worry a lot but I use my tap/well water and have no issues. Use some water conditioner as recommended and good to go. I do use a thermometer to get the temperature close but don't obsess on it being exact.

I see that fall hurt, but it was quite graceful if you ask me!

Chlorine will dissipate after a few days, but chloramines will NOT, ever ! I actually have to double the dose of water treatment to see no ammonia in my tap water. (Chloramines show as ammonia) Where I live, (NH) they have actual warnings for fish keepers regarding this in our yearly water report. They use both chemicals. I made the mistake of buying a treatment one time only to find it did not remove chloramines. Also, Lisa, sorry you had that bad fall. Get healed up soon. Your fish are calling.🙂

That fall looked like it hurt! Hope you are ok. As for water changes. In the house I do use a hose from my sink - temp check by feel and add Seachem Prime. In the office 6g I use a gallon jug from the bathroom deep sink and Prime. I can never get that water temp higher than cold though.

Ouch glad you are ok you got be careful

Hope your ankle's feeling better. When I was young, 1940's, we had a big fish bowl (2, 2 1/2 ? gallons) with common guppies in it and we did water in jugs for 24 hours before cleaning the tank. Now I'm in my 80s and have gone down from (4) 40L, a 20L and 10 to (2) 15 gallon tanks each divided in half with a male betta in each partition.

Oh no Lisa! I hope you didn't hurt yourself too badly. Loved the Betta b role and the tips too!

Falls suck. Glad you're ok

I appreciate the insight. However the main problem i see with people (understanding the subject of using RO/Distilled water) is that. 1.) People often get confused (no help from fish store employees sometimes that can be misleading, "I keep mine at 7.6ph" "my gH is 400+ and they're fine" So you have to make sure you know what the fish wants before you start "adjusting" the water parameters. 2.)I wish there was more readily available information about how to adapt the water to what you need, instead of recommending people go out and buy RO/distilled water. Much like foraging in the wild, it can be dangerous, but it's more dangerous when you don't know how to forage. People that know how to treat their water, and what kind of water the fish want, have the most success in the hobby. I use rainwater and water collected from my house's AC unit. People tell me "the tar on the roof" is bad for the fish, the leaves in the gutters, and the toxicity of the rainwater itself. Guess what, i've switched over entirely to rain/AC water, and my fish are doing fine The guppies are breeding, the shibunken are breeding, the tetras don't care. I process my own water, using a sand/gravel filter (like ones for humans in a survival situation, should be good enough for my fish) I use aragonite for the gravel, to add calcium to the water as well as raise the pH a bit (the rainwater here comes down ~6.8pH and even still has minerals in it) Once you understand how to treat water, how to adjust parameters, AFTER you stabilized your tank, it becomes a way less confusing world. I hope that instead of trying to play Whack a mole with people online with questions about their specific water situations, we can move towards giving the community a better understand of how to process your own local specific water, for your own local specific needs. And move away from product dependency

Lol bless your cotton socks Lisa hope you ok ? Glad john came back for you what a guy haha

I literally just python the water into my tanks from the tap. Throw half dosage of prime at the beginning of filling then dose the entire aquarium afterwards for a total of a dose and a half. I use a infrared temp gun to temp the water coming out of the tap and call it a day. Turn off the filters when I start filling up the tank and after about 2min I turn it back on. I have 13 aquariums ranging from 10 gallons (QT tank,) 20g, lots of 40s, and a few 75s. Never had a fish death due to water changes. My tanks have shrimp in them which is why I use a temp gun.

Awww bless, hope your legs feeling a bit better now

I test my tap water 1st, we have high ammonia levels sometimes, then put it in the tank with water conditioner. Never worried about temperature.

Thank you Lisa

It’s awesome that your husband is your hero!!! 👍🏼

Oh No!!!! Hope you are feeling better soon. Please take care of yourself.

Off topic question. What size category does a 29 gallon tank fall into. I hear you talk about small tanks and large tanks but not a lot about 29’s. Just curious

🥺😮 That looked painful...OUCH! Hope all is ok!

I run a hose directly in my tank, then while water is running I add seachem safe.

I moved cities and the first water change I did in my new place made 75% of my fish pass away. I now double dose the water conditioner and have no issues. But I was livid when it first happened.

Oh no I'm so sorry that you fell. Wishing you wellness.

OMG Lisa! Thanks for sharing the video though

Fyi....I LOVE ALL OF YOUR CATS❤❤❤🐱🐈

john is a hero lol

Yikes! That was NOT a laugh-out-loud fall 😮 Tgat was a, this looks like a good place to plant my knee, fall. I'm many days behind in my RU-vid viewing so I'm hoping things are feeling better now as I type this. If you need some free labor while things heal up, I've got some vacation time just itching to be used 😁

Hi Lisa. Another Great Video 😊

I use PUR water pitcher to filter water and pour it into empty gallon (milk) containers with 2 drops of PRIME per gallon. I use these for topping off tanks and filling up new aquariums. Can be tedious task with larger tank but the results when adding fish is very successful. Let the tank sit for about a 5 days with filters running before adding any fish. This gives you time to add sand and decorations to your taste. No water changes needed with this method! My tanks are crystal clear and I never do water changes.

Chlorine is a gas and reacts in contact with air. Drain water from the shower and most of the chlorine will disappear and then add Tetra aqua safe and you should be on the safe side. Boiling the water to remove the chlorine also works. If you have time, you can fill up water in large containers and let it stand for at least 24 hours, so the chlorine evaporates (observe that you do not have a tight-fitting lid on the container). Which method you use is completely up to you and your taste. I myself use the shower method for my three different aquariums, one of which has a pair of discus that play regularly.

I guess I'm one of the old school grumps. I've been using tap water aged 24-48 hrs for all kinds of pets for five decades. All types of fish. Also, toads, tree frogs, various newts and salamanders and never had an issue. I keep several species of carnivorous plants, which are allegedly very finicky about water quality.

I hope you feel better soon OUCH! Yea, leaving water over 24 hours works. I still do it for my mimosa ball. My goldfish mouth it.

I was traumatized as a kid (many many years ago), when I lost every fish in my tank during a water change. Later I found out that the city water was changed to include chloramine and no amount of aging it would make it safe. Now I treat all my water before adding it to a tank. That may be overkill, but I'd hate to lose fish like that again. Also, I hope you feel better quick.

I have sulfa water from my well is that something to be concerned with. I am hoping to set up a huge tank but want to know if that is something to be concerned with before hand been years since I was in the hobby

"Tis but a flesh wound!"... Rub some dirt in it, you'll be fine! JK.. Glad to see you're still functional, at least!

I hit Like when mike came back. 😍 Hope you're ok.

Hi Lisa. Sorry you fell I hope you will be Ok.🙏

Have you tried Reverse Osmosis De-Ionized water filters to make your Aquarium water.

Thank you Lisa, my tap water is almost 1000 TDS.. shall I go with that?

Are you ok from your fall? Good answers about aquarium water. Gina Hetlage

Straight from the tap outside cause it's the closest faucet.

OUCHHYYYY!

I feel like I shouldn’t like this video only because Lisa hurt herself. Hope you have a quick recovery 😊❤

Water conditioner, do you use it just for the new water you just filled in, or for the total amount of the tank? example you have 50g tank, do a water change of 30%, do you dose the tank with ater conditioner for the 15g you are going to add fresh water or for the 50g total?

I put water from my tub and quick start solution. Also “stress coat” and my fish died over night. I let that water sit for a week before I added the fish and it was the right temperature, what am I doing wrong? What do I do so they don’t die?

that's a nice algae free tank in the back

Can you keep a Male or female betta in a community tank?