"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.


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!



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.