Water temps during changeout?

[DrDanke]

First off, this is my first 10 gallon freshwater setup. Fake Plants, 30 watt incandescent lighting, no fish yet, whisper power filter 10 for filtration and aeriation.

A whole day with my tank light on sets my temps rock steady at 76F, so I got my heater set with the light off to keep the temps very steadily at 76F. All good and fine, but I got to thinking, what about those water changeouts? Even if the water you are changing out is at room temp, that will still drop your aquarium temps a little. Are you supposed to have a second heater and a second thermometer to heat up the changeout water? Is there some other method I don't know about?

Thinking about this, I came up with this. Having a 2 gallon water pitcher with an attached thermometer and stick a cheap 50 watt heater in it with a small aeriation pump to stir up the water. Tap water goes in, add aquasafe, sets a day or so, on the day of the changeout, turn on the heater and heat up the water to the exact temp, then changeout... sounds like a plan huh?

How do you do your changeouts?

[125gJoe]

You can get a digital thermometer for less than $10 to check the water. A 3 degree difference shouldn't cause problems. We try and keep our water changes at the same temperature.

[DEmigh]

You are taking this stuff way seriously, which is way cool :cool:

Remember, that 2 gallons is only one fifth of your aquarium, so the temperature differential is divided by four, and further mitigated by the heat stored in the gravel and glass of the aquarium.

[TKOS]

Of course it often depends on the fish you keep but if you try to keep it as close as possible then you should be fine. If the fish happen to be sick or stressed then matching temps will help them avoid an extra stress in life but pretty much all healthy fish can withstand small temp changes.

[altse]

I have a 20 gallon tank that I cycle regularly.

When I do a small cycle, I fill a large pitcher with cold tap water, add my water conditioner and then add boiling water to bring the temperature up before pouring it in.

I do pretty much the same with a larger change but I use a new car-wash bucket and a whole pot of boiling water.

Edit: I do this a few times, I don't just change one pitcher of water when I do a small change, I usually just boil a whole pot of water and go back and forth between the sink using part of the boiling water each time.

I just dont like to have to break out the wash bucket which tends to get tricky cause it weighs about 40-50 lb and I have to lift it above my head with 6"x30" of flooring to stand on cause my fishtank is on a ledge in my living room.

[Hound]

Fairly interesting answers. For the most part I do try to match the water temperature of incomming water, but I just stick my finger in it and decide if its close enough. The last water change I did though I was a bit more off than usual and dropped my tank temperature from 76f to about 72f. Didn't think much of it until the next morning when I realized that the temperature change triggered my peppered corys to leave eggs on the side of the tank. Unfortunatly by the time I found out my tanks other residents had done quite a bit of damage and since I wasn't prepared all eggs were lost :(

[TKOS]

That is generally the way to get cories to lay eggs. Cool water during a water change will stimulate them.

But I wouldn't worry too much as it is pretty hard to get viable eggs in an aquarium for cories. Most are either not fertilized or quickly succumb to fungus.