Winter water changes

[GBG]

Anyone have any bright ideas for changing water on big tanks in the winter? I pump water directly into my 350g tank for all water changes (well water, no chlorine); in the summer this is no problem b/c the water temp is relatively warm, but in the winter the temp of the new water is damn cold.

Other than having a holding tank to heat the new water (no chance, too much of a pain) or only doing very small changes (not practical on big tanks with heavy bio load), I haven't figured out how to avoid a drastic temp change in tank when doing large watr changes. Any ideas? Thx

 

[rumblesushi]

Same here, no chance of me having a holding tank here.

I'm afraid my only solution is to do around a 25% change instead of 50. During the summer I've been doing 2 50% water changes a week on my 190. When the water gets really cold you can do a 25% without the temp dropping drastically.

One other trick is to fill the tank up very very slowly, and by the time it's full of you have decent heaters, the tank is almost it's normal temp

 

[rallysman]

mix warm and cold water to the desired temperature.

or........ Install a drip system and forget about water changes

 

[HarleyK]

Howdy,

as said above: I change water very slowly in smaller percentages during the winter months. Furthermore, I leave the filter running in order to circulate the water better to reduce cold spots during the refill. Depending on the fish species you keep, you may have to be extra careful (e.g. Altolamprologus) or you don't have to worry at all (Trichogaster) ...

HarleyK

 

[Oddball]

I opted for the water storage tanks. I have two 1000gal tanks in the main hatchery and a 400 gal tank in the fish room. All are on a whole house filtration system. Nice part is I have float valves on my wet/dry filters and they feed off of the 400gal tank. And, since I heat by heating the room, the storage tank is always the same temp as the aquariums (except after large water changes. Then, I refill the 400 off of one of the 1000gal tanks).

 

[GBG]

mix warm and cold water to the desired temperature.

or........ Install a drip system and forget about water changes

If only it were that easy... water comes directly from my house sprinkler system, not sink.

Yeah, I read about your drip sytem, sounds great. I'm too damn incompetent to put something like that together. Want to come over and build one for me? (NY suburbs) I pay well.