"Rapid" Water Aging

[SMB2]

Nothing earth shattering here, but there have been a lot of posts lately about ageing (pick your spelling) water. For a lot of people 24 hours seems a problem so they skip the process altogether.
Other than adjusting the PH and temp it is not clear to me what else is going on with the water while in the ageing barrel and I am not sure if it would be easily measured.
My tap water has a PH of 7.1, (most times) and my tank 7.6. With all the measurements below, I never noted a change in GH/KH or Phos regardless of ageing time (which were the only other parameters that I could measure). All PH measurements were with a Milwaukee probe.

33 gal Tupperware ageing barrel with heater and air-stone: 6 hours----PH 7.2 12 hours----PH 7.4 24 hours----PH 7.5

33 gal Tupperware ageing barrel with same heater and 360 gph Marinland pump for circulation. 6 hours----PH 7.4 12 hours---- PH 7.5 24 hours----PH 7.6

33 gal Tupperware ageing barrel with same heater and 700 gph Pond Pump for circulation. 6 hours---- PH 7.8 (I wondered if this degree of agitation super saturated the water so I turned the pump off for an hour, and the PH fell to 7.5.)
12 hours----PH 7.8 (Stayed there with pump off for one hour.)
24 hours----PH 7.9

All three barrels were run at the same time (so I did a 90% WC this AM!).

I think I can safely age my water (at least 33 gal as I only have one old Pond Pump) in 6 hours. Unless I am missing some parameter that requires longer aging I am going to try this for a while. The difference is not having the aging barrel in the room all day long and it also allows for faster emergency WCs. Many of us are space challenged. I can set my water up in the late evening and do the WC early AM and my wife never sees the barrel.
I am not sure if this will hold true for larger barrels or different tap water but if you have an old submersible pump around, might be worth a try.

[DiscusLoverJeff]

Great study on aging water Stan. Most people though age their water because of chlorine. And aging helps eliminate it with the aeration. But I see what you are saying regarding time and PH.

[pastry]

Stan, I'm really interested in your study (it's one that would help me out) but I'm confused on your conclusion. Not sure if I'm missing something but how did you draw out that you could age your water in 6 hours when every single 33 gal tupperware had its ph change over the entire 24 hours +?

I guess I was trying to see if one of the ones you picked changed PH over the course of 6 hours and then leveled off (and stayed that way) for the rest of the 24hours.

I'm not sure if I'm asking this right but please let me know if the question I've tried to articulate makes sense. Overall, thanks Stan! --Elliot

[YSS]

Holy crap! Your pH is 7.9 after 24 hours? That's not real good for discus. I need to check my tank.

[troysdiiscus]

What I am reading is all 3 started at same time. 1st with min. circulation last with 700 gph. There is a .6 swing increase in 6 hours using more circulation and ph stablized after the pump was turned of for the remainder of the 18 hours. Conclusion, rapid circualtion can degas water and stabliize the ph not to swing in tank. Thats what I got out of it...
Stan, I'm really interested in your study (it's one that would help me out) but I'm confused on your conclusion. Not sure if I'm missing something but how did you draw out that you could age your water in 6 hours when every single 33 gal tupperware had its ph change over the entire 24 hours +?

I guess I was trying to see if one of the ones you picked changed PH over the course of 6 hours and then leveled off (and stayed that way) for the rest of the 24hours.

I'm not sure if I'm asking this right but please let me know if the question I've tried to articulate makes sense. Overall, thanks Stan! --Elliot

[DiscusLoverJeff]

What I am reading is all 3 started at same time. 1st with min. circulation last with 700 gph. There is a .6 swing increase in 6 hours using more circulation and ph stablized after the pump was turned of for the remainder of the 18 hours. Conclusion, rapid circualtion can degas water and stabliize the ph not to swing in tank. Thats what I got out of it...

That's what my take is on it as well. The more circulation the less swing in the tank.

[SMB2]

I was trying to see the effect of increasing agitation in the ageing barrel on off gassing CO2 to bring the PH to its final state.
My tap water once aged for 24 hours regardless of the method settles with a PH of 7.6. (I think the 7.9 would come back down to 7.6 if I had followed it in the barrel. And I have never seen it higher than 7.7 in the display tank.)
By chance I just started using the Pond pump in the ageing barrel because my only air pump was on a QT tank. What I noticed was that the PH rose from 7.1 to 7.6 very quickly in the barrel. So I wondered if I could reduce the 24 hour ageing process.

I set up three barrels simultaneously with the same heaters (at the same temp) and put an air stone in one, the power head in one and the Pond pump in the third. Then I just moved the probe back and forth for PH measurements.
The higher than 7.6 numbers I attribute to O2 super saturation because the PH would fall if I turned off the Pond Pump. I actually took several hourly measurements in the third barrel and the PH never fell below 7.6 after 6 hours. I actually did the 700 gph twice and turned it off at 6 hours; the PH was 7.6 at 24 hrs. Also left the 700 gph on for a full 24 hrs and got the 7.9 reading. This I am sure would come back to 7.6 if I waited for an hour or so.
Not sure about electricity consumption of the Pond pump for 6 hrs. vs. an air pump for 24hrs!

So I think I can "hyper" agitate the water for 6 hours, add Prime (lets not go there!!!) to the barrel for a few minutes and do my WC. So far the fish don't care. In fact since starting the 6 hour ageing, one pair spawned.
The Cl is dealt with, the PH and temp are at tank level and stable.
Is there anything that is in tap water that needs longer equilibration? Again this might not work in a larger volume of ageing water, unless you had a bigger pump.

Nice to see I got some feed back. Maybe there is an ageing compromise.

[SMB2]

Just curious...how many of you use a PH meter? This is an easy exp. to try yourself with your own system. I would be interested to see if there could be a new norm!

[fredyx]

For me your assessment is correct, the more agitation less time to stabilize ph in the reservoir. If you add prime to deal with Cl, nothing else is missing so you are fine with your system

[SMB2]

I think so Fred, but I will keep testing for now. I will run the 700 gph for 24 hours next WC and then verify that the PH settles at 7.6. (I.E. if the PH is >then 7.6 will it fall back and hold with the pump off.)
This is the 90 gal (340 L) tank just after the water change. I removed about 15 Sword plants last week and immediately got an algae bloom.
http://i899.photobucket.com/albums/ac196/LongLure/Tank2013_Bysshe_20130220_15008-Version2_zps21f98bcc.jpg

I have limited space. Tank and FICU. Trying to get two fish from the same group to eat after a 6week hunger strike. One seems well on the way to recovery. These two prompted finding a rapid ageing process, as I was doing 95% WC on the FICU twice a day for two weeks. I have a half closet that holds three 33gal stacked trash cans plus hoses etc. There is a sink in this basement room for the Python. If I could have the whole basement..that would be a sweet fish room!
http://i899.photobucket.com/albums/ac196/LongLure/Tank2013_Bysshe_20130220_15059-Version2_zps11379e05.jpg


BTW, thanks to AL for setting up this new Topic site.

[pauline]

Good information and your tank and discus look very nice.

[jprit68]

I too age my water.I have a 55 gallon plastic drum with air stone,heater,and using a "two little fishies" reactor for Ammonia and heavy metal removal.The reactor is powered by a Mag drive classic 7 water pump.
Once I fill 55 gallon drum,I'll use Stress coat,Stress Zyme,Tetra Black water extract,and API Tap water conditioner.After 12 hours or so,I'll check my water parameters,etc: PH,AMMONIA,and KH. My Ph readings are 6.6,KH readings are 53 ppm.
I have a 72 gallon bow with five Discus and must say with the way I've been doing my maintenance for the last five years,my discus haven't been sick.And to top that off,I have a planted tank with smaller tetras and drift wood.Since I've been ageing water my life is much easier.Switched over from r/o water since the cost of filters and everything else needed was getting to expensive.
So I know some people don't like the way I do my maintenance,but it works for myself and my discus.

[fredyx]

Nice setup Stan :). Well my approach is different, I never aged water and never had a single health problem related with water chemistry (more than 20 years on this with different species and different tap water parametres). I use a 2 stage charcoal prefilter and I let my water flow slowly at the right temp regultated by the shower thermostate and use a short of faucet spryer attached to the end of the pipe to avoid bubbles (followed here the advice of Stendker concerning the importance of getting rid of microbubbles). My tap water here has ph 7.5 due to addition of CO2 (my plants stay bubbling O2 half an hour after the wc) and it stabilizes in some hours in 7.6. I understand the theoretical approach to "ageing" water but in practice I couldn't see any drawbacks derived from my "method".

[SMB2]

Don't mess with success. If it is working for you guys then I wouldn't change a thing.
But if you spend any time on SD you will see, especially in the the disease section, that one of the first treatment meds is lots of aged water. Secondly unless you have specific breeding needs for a PH level, most of the wise guys recommend "don't chase the PH" (Even the sponsors that sell RO units!). So WC with a stable PH seems key. Lots of folks have stable tap/well PH so their WCs may be easier. Here in the DC area I have seen Ph levels of 7.1 and 6.6 out of the same tap and it always rises with ageing. Also in an established tank I think PH is probably the one test that will give you the health of your tank. That is why I think a PH meter is a reasonable investment. That and I am not so good at color matching! (The other API tests are easy because they basically should be 0, with the exception of nitrates.)
So, I age my water. My tank is always 7.6/7.7 and the aged water will rise to that. My only question was could I speed up the process so I would't have barrels sitting all over the place. The answer seems to be that shorter periods of ageing can be carried out with more vigorous agitation. (It works fastest with an OPEN barrel to allow for gas exchange.)

Wasn't trying to convince anybody to age their water, but lots of discus keepers do, and are space/time challenged so maybe this will help.

[fredyx]

Don't mess with success. If it is working for you guys then I wouldn't change a thing.
But if you spend any time on SD you will see, especially in the the disease section, that one of the first treatment meds is lots of aged water. Secondly unless you have specific breeding needs for a PH level, most of the wise guys recommend "don't chase the PH" (Even the sponsors that sell RO units!). So WC with a stable PH seems key. Lots of folks have stable tap/well PH so their WCs may be easier. Here in the DC area I have seen Ph levels of 7.1 and 6.6 out of the same tap and it always rises with ageing. Also in an established tank I think PH is probably the one test that will give you the health of your tank. That is why I think a PH meter is a reasonable investment. That and I am not so good at color matching! (The other API tests are easy because they basically should be 0, with the exception of nitrates.)
So, I age my water. My tank is always 7.6/7.7 and the aged water will rise to that. My only question was could I speed up the process so I would't have barrels sitting all over the place. The answer seems to be that shorter periods of ageing can be carried out with more vigorous agitation. (It works fastest with an OPEN barrel to allow for gas exchange.)

Wasn't trying to convince anybody to age their water, but lots of discus keepers do, and are space/time challenged so maybe this will help.

I fully support your point of view :) If I had a tap water with a ph in a range from 7.7 to 6.6 I would defenitely age my water ;) For me water parameters stability is a cornerstone for keeping discus fish. I find your method an improvement to those ever lasting barrels waiting to be ready for the wc all around.

[SMB2]

Ok, just to complete some of the above questions, I redid the ageing barrel with the pond pump and followed it hourly. The PH went from 7.0 (tap) to 7.7 in 6hours. By 8 hours it was 7.9. I turned off the pump and the PH fell to 7.6 and it has not changed for the last several hours. So the water probably does get super saturated with O2.
BTW I leave the top off the barrel which also allows for maximum exchange.
If you try it let me know your results.

[discus6628]

My tap water would measure around 7.4. Then after 24 hours filled into the tank it would be around 8.2. It is good swing on the PH. So far fish are doing fine over 2 months. I do daily WC 50% on 100g and sump as the filtration under my stand. The tank is in living room so I have no luxury on putting barrel in the living room. May be I can consider pickup a 30g and put it under the stand. Question here would 30g (aged water) mix with 20g (not age water) use to fill up 50g into 100g, would it ready help and make the big different for discus? I would think it may. Just want to throw out this question before I start implement it.

[SMB2]

In general, for an established tank, Discus will tolerate a temporary upswing in PH compared to a drop in PH. But an upswing does have an effect om the toxicity of ammonia. Ammonia comes in two forms Ammonium (NH4+) which isn't toxic and ammonia (NH3) which is toxic. Both pH and water temperature affect how much of the toxic form of ammonia is present in your water. Higher pH and higher temp result in a higher proportion of the total ammonia being present in its toxic form (NH3). pH has the largest effect on ammonia toxicity. So if you have low pH and low temps, higher total ammonia can be present without it being as toxic as at higher pH and temps. A sudden upswing in PH can risk ammonia toxicity.

Bottom line, it is best to have no swings at all. Perhaps the question to ask is whether or not a daily aged 30gal WC is better than a mixed 50gal WC. Not sure I know the answer. You could age 18 gal in the 30 and add 12 gal tap (if I did my math right) to test it and measure the PH and see how close it is to the tank. At this proportion you would have your answer for the 50 gal mix.
Secondly as the tank becomes more established you might consider if fewer WC are needed.
In that senario you could do two aged 30 gal WC in one day twice a week (if the high agitation works for you).
A PH meter makes all this playing around a whole lot easier.

[discus6628]

I did 50% daily WC on 100g because I am still growing the frys. May be down the line I could just do 30% change which is about 30g as the same plan of getting 30g fit under stand for ageing water. Will keep this plan in mind. In term of ammonia, my reading is always 0 along with nitrite. But my nitrate always at 10ppms even when i have daily WC. This is something i don't figure out.

[SMB2]

But my nitrate always at 10ppms even when i have daily WC. This is something i don't figure out.
Check the Nitrates in your tap water. May be part of the reason. My tap is always 5-10 ppm.
If your tap Nitrates are 0 then if you want 0 for your tank, I guess larger volume WC.

I know nothing about raising young discus, other than what I read here. Feeding and watering seem to be the gold standard!

[discus6628]

Agree.. this is my first frys given by good friend to me to test the water on starting with discus. So far they are doing. I think it has to be left over food from the feed. I did cut back but still want to leave some extra food for them to ensure they have enough to eat beside sterbai and cardinal helping them at the same time. since I vacuum and wc daily, i guess i am ok. but not sure why ammonia and nitrite at zero but not nitrate. I will test nitrate again right out from the tap tonight to proof the test.

[aalbina]

Thanks Stan - this is great information. I currently have two airstones in my food grade 65 gallon aging barrel along with a heater. I'm on well water and run the water through an HMA filter before going into the aging barrel. It's good to know that greater agitation can speed up the race to equilibrium! There have been times when I needed more water but thought had to wait 24hours. I'll run some experiments myself and see if this holds true for me as well. I'll just go from two airstones to a powerhead and see how the ph reacts.

Thanks for this!

Adam

[SMB2]

Adam, please post your results here. Maybe PH at the start, 6/12/24 hrs. If you do see a PH change at 6 hrs, turn the pump off and see if it holds.
Hope it works for you.

[dirtyplants]

I have problems with RO systems the waste of water is hard for me to swallow. So I take a 55 gallon with wheels, clamp a large plant basket onto it. Fill the basket with high grade charcoal in large filter bag place egg crate cut to size in/on top of basket. Make hole to stabilize and place end of hose from tap. Turn on cold water and let the container fill forcing the water through the charcoal. When filled I turn off facet, and plug in a cheap pond pump with hose attached, run the end of the hose into the basket. I force the 55 gallon water to recirculate over and over again for a couple of hours this eliminates heavy metals, chlorine and chloramine. Then I take the hose (which was running through the charcoal) and place into a micron filter bag also clamped inside of the 55 gallon. I run that for an hour or so. Takes care of most of heavy to medium particles. I use air and do agitate water, pH will rise after this depending on how much co2 was injected by WWD. pH hmmm I have found most pH units recently of dubious qualities. All seem to read differently and am currently asking people who live and use pH meters in my state to test tap water directly from tap record it along with the instrument they used for measurement. I compare this to what the city says the pH is when released by their water department. Mineral deposits and evaporation of co2 will raise the general hardness of water by the time it reaches tap. I am at war with my city water department, :{ . Are you sure you pH unit is accurate?

[musicmarn1]

I'm still wary to use the ro unit I bought, so I'm going to try your aging filter technique! Joe gargus's book has something similar, with thaw addition of polyester filter blanket and peat if I remover it right. Been wanting to filter the water with high grade carbon before it goes into the aquarium, so ill start with this, thanks!


I have problems with RO systems the waste of water is hard for me to swallow. So I take a 55 gallon with wheels, clamp a large plant basket onto it. Fill the basket with high grade charcoal in large filter bag place egg crate cut to size in/on top of basket. Make hole to stabilize and place end of hose from tap. Turn on cold water and let the container fill forcing the water through the charcoal. When filled I turn off facet, and plug in a cheap pond pump with hose attached, run the end of the hose into the basket. I force the 55 gallon water to recirculate over and over again for a couple of hours this eliminates heavy metals, chlorine and chloramine. Then I take the hose (which was running through the charcoal) and place into a micron filter bag also clamped inside of the 55 gallon. I run that for an hour or so. Takes care of most of heavy to medium particles. I use air and do agitate water, pH will rise after this depending on how much co2 was injected by WWD. pH hmmm I have found most pH units recently of dubious qualities. All seem to read differently and am currently asking people who live and use pH meters in my state to test tap water directly from tap record it along with the instrument they used for measurement. I compare this to what the city says the pH is when released by their water department. Mineral deposits and evaporation of co2 will raise the general hardness of water by the time it reaches tap. I am at war with my city water department, :{ . Are you sure you pH unit is accurate?