Microwaving water?

[austinpetemo]

I did a waterchange today on my BC14 and noticed that the RO water that i poured in dropped the temp from 78.2 to 68.... Not cool. So my question to you is how can i preheat the water before adding it? Is microwaving the water to a more suitable temperature ok? I only have one heater and it belongs in the tank.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Just microwave a small portion of the water (1-2 cups) until it's nice and hot, then pour that into the rest of the new water. Check the temp and add it to your tank.

 

[Khemul]

Be careful microwaving RO water. Hitting the boiling point can be bad if it is very good RO water.


You could also just mix a bunch of tank water into the RO water in something like a 5g bucket right before adding it. Would depend on how big of a waterchange you are doing is but even for a 50% change you can just do it multiple times.

 

[austinpetemo]

i dont think its THAT good of water. The stuff that i used make when i lived at home was like perfect 0ppm, but this is from an RO machine at CVS, its prolly not the best, but its sure better than the tap. What happens when RO water boils?

 

[Doc7]

Sometimes RO water doesn't boil - until it's disturbed, when it turns into a giant pile of instantly evaporating steam which is very dangerous as it suddenly expands into a very large cloud, right in your face, chest and hands probably.

This can also sometimes happen even with tap water if microwaved in a very smooth glass container. They showed it on the news once; as there were no imperfections on which a bubble could form, when a tea bag was dropped in some water taken straight from the microwave, it suddenly boiled over very dangerously

 

[austinpetemo]

woa thats pretty intense! im heating it up to like 100 degrees or so and adding it slowly. its taking time but i dont want to shock the stock to much.

also, ive noticed in the rear compartment of my BC14 there is foam being made when the water cascades down. What is this??? Ive had many fw setups but never had anything with the bubbles like this

 

[Mgamer20o0]

just slowly add it or put a heater in the bucket of ro. i wouldnt bother with nuking it. i always water change with just tap and i am sure i have dropped 10+ degrees.

 

[petluvr]

just slowly add it or put a heater in the bucket of ro. i wouldnt bother with nuking it. i always water change with just tap and i am sure i have dropped 10+ degrees.

I do tap cold water changes too and would be willing to bet mine drops that much with each water change, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[austinpetemo]

ya, im just trying to reduce shock on my fish as much as possible, and i never noticed before the epic shift in temps. its taken like 7 hours for the temp to get back up where it was originally

 

[dbosman]

Five degrees isn't a serious change for most fish. It may even stimulate spawning.
Rain is usually cooler than natural habitat water.

Since you're in a warm part of the country, can you just leave the water change container out side for a while?