Untreated tap water

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Yoimbrian

Yoimbrian

Dovii
MFK Member
Feb 11, 2013
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I've read a lot of posts regarding using untreated tap water straight into the aquarium in water changes. There seems to be debate and it usually ends with "it depends on your water supply". Here is the link to my city water supply analysis.

http://www.ci.woodbury.mn.us/images/stories/publicworks-docs/2011-drinking-water-report.pdf

Thoughts? My local (good) fish store uses untreated water...

Also it references lead in one of thirty samples and says likely from the house. I have a newer house so this shouldn't be an issue.


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You certainly CAN use it, I would still advise against it. I always use safe when I do a water change. For the little amount of money it costs you, you'd be foolish to chance the lives of your fish. All it takes is one person to make a mistake at the water plant or for them to dump chloramines into the water after you have rain and your fish will be in trouble. Not worth it for a couple of buck imo.
 
I'd say 90% of us on here just go straight from the sink to the tank. We use dechlorinator right before or right as we're filling the tank. That would save you a lot of time.
 
Yes you can use untreated water. I have stopped using prime for some months now with no ill effects. All my fish are perfectly fine. Even the small community fish in my sons 15.


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If you look at the last entry, it says chlorine is added around 0.5ppm.
You could get away without adding a dechorinator if you put water in a separate vessel, aerate it over night, and then pump it into your tank.
Your water supply company uses chlorine, and not chloramine which although has a shorter half life, has an actually more acute damaging effect to a fishes gills at low levels to fish than chloramine.
If I lived where you do, I would add a little dechlorinator as tap water was flowing into the tank, as strollo advised, just to be safe.
 
I would go w/ strollos advice, I fill up a food safe cooler and wheel it over to my room from the bathroom, dechlor, and right into the tank.

The thing about the people saying they don't have any ill effects on their fish is that it depends on loads of different factors. The sensitivity of the fish themselves, some are most definitely more fragile then others. I would imagine the stock of the tank, the stress level, and the bio load factor in to success w/ using untreated water. Probably how old your piping is too, but you already know your house is newer so that's good.

What's your stock? How often/ how much water do you change? While there are some members on here who claim that untreated water is fine, there are others who forgot to dechlor and have half their stock die.

Things take a while to build up in the fish if the initial shock doesn't kill them, so yes I would imagine some tanks will be fine for quite a while before fish start displaying ill effects. By then it may be too late to save them

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Speaking of which, there was a thread just the other day where the guy forgot to add dechlorinator ONCE, and it was only like a 20% waterchange and half his fish died. Maybe his water is worse than yours, but I still wouldn't risk it.
 
That report was done on water well over a year and a half ago, so are you assuming there have been no changes?
 
BuffaloPolypteridae said:
I would go w/ strollos advice, I fill up a food safe cooler and wheel it over to my room from the bathroom, dechlor, and right into the tank.

The thing about the people saying they don't have any ill effects on their fish is that it depends on loads of different factors. The sensitivity of the fish themselves, some are most definitely more fragile then others. I would imagine the stock of the tank, the stress level, and the bio load factor in to success w/ using untreated water. Probably how old your piping is too, but you already know your house is newer so that's good.

What's your stock? How often/ how much water do you change? While there are some members on here who claim that untreated water is fine, there are others who forgot to dechlor and have half their stock die.

Things take a while to build up in the fish if the initial shock doesn't kill them, so yes I would imagine some tanks will be fine for quite a while before fish start displaying ill effects. By then it may be too late to save them

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Click to expand...

My stock varies on the tank but mostly cichlids and catfish but I have a endli and wolf fish besides that my sons community tank witch is tetras. I do 25% water changes ever Sunday. Except for recently my 75 has been getting daily 10% changes due to new driftwood. I have stopped using prime for about 4 months now so I'm sure if It had some type of effect on my fish I would have lost a lot more fish then just two and both deaths were not natural. One was a jumper and the other was found dead being eaten by a rtc.


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