mister ben
02-02-2005, 10:19 AM
Since I only have a 10 gallon tank I thought it may be faster and more convenient to do water changes if I simply siphone out 1-2 gallons and replace it with purified water bought at the grocery store (in 1 gallon jugs). I would still follow all other normal procedures, except that I wouldn't treat the water being added. The reason I thought of this is because my lfs informed me that my city water is very, very bad and difficult to get conditioned for a tank.
Anyways, this idea sounds a little to easy to be true, so I figured I should consult the experts here before I proceed with that plan.
happychem
02-02-2005, 11:14 AM
Well, what exactly is wrong with your city water? You can get a water quality report from your local water comission and also find out about how they treat the water: do they use chloramines or just chlorine?
I don't think that there are many places in the western world where tap water quality is so bad on a regular basis that you couldn't keep some kind of fish with great success.
If your water folks use chloramines, look into a conditioner that deals with the chloramines and detoxifies the released ammonia. I think that Prime and Amquel do this. There are probably others, but I've never concerned myself with it, no chloramines here.
You should be aiming to change 50% of old tank water per week, that's 5g of your 10g tank if you do it in one shot or 6g in 2 3g removals (33% twice is a 50% change due to the dilution and removal of some of the new water at the second change). I don't know how much your bottled water costs, but I'm willing to wager that it's less than a bottle of top of the line conditioner, or at least over the lifespan of the conditioner it would pay for itself.
Plus when you get a bigger tank this will no longer be econimical or convenient.