ageing?

[Johnturner]

Hello, my name is John, I am new to Discus. I have a 55gallon tank with 2 Discus bought at an LFS local fish store. I am getting four more from Wattley on Tuesday. I have spent a whole day surfing simplydiscus.com and now feel less ignorant. In fact, I am unashamedly going bottomless.
I would like to thank all of you and especially Carol Roberts for all the patient and invaluable information given. I do have one dumb question though. How exactly do you age water? besides keeping it in a large container and heating it what else do you do? Do you agitate it and if so for how long? Do you use a submersible pump? For now I am using a 26 gallon plastic trash can. I also use Amquel plus since my tap water contains chloramines. Any detailed help/answer would be appreciate. Thank you.

[Tad]

How exactly do you age water? besides keeping it in a large container and heating it what else do you do? Do you agitate it and if so for how long? Do you use a submersible pump? For now I am using a 26 gallon plastic trash can. I also use Amquel plus since my tap water contains chloramines. Any detailed help/answer would be appreciate. Thank you.

Welcome to Simply John,
Aging of your storage water not only involves heating but stabilization of the PH and can take various time frames. As a general rule or maybe just common practice that I have observed, Most age for about 24 hours. However dependent upon the agitation you use, the time involved to stabilize the PH can vary. Agitation can be accomplished in various manners: for example I use an air pump with airline and a large airstone and it works well for me in a 24 hour period (55 gallon containers). Others use powerheads and submergible pumps and can have their PH's stabilize in less time even as low as a few hours.

HTH
Tad

[Russ]

Hi John,
You may want to keep an eye on your garbage can your using for water storage because alot of them leak after a while, I had to upgrade mine to a professional strength after the first one leaked.

[Carol_Roberts]

Hi John:
Test the pH of your water from the tap. (mine is 6.8) Check the pH of water that has been in your fish tank for at least 24 hours. (mine is 7.8) You want your change water pH to be close to the pH of your fish tank.

IF you have soft water an airstone alone may be enough to stabilize the pH. If you have moderately hard water like I do then you will need to really agitate the water with a pump.

Run an airstone in your storage water and check the pH every three hours. make a note of when pH stabilizes at number close to tank number. If it takes more than 24 hours I'd buy a pump. With a pump and hose I can stabilize the pH in three hours.

[Johnturner]

Thank you very much for responding as quickly and in as much detail as you did. This has been extremely helpful.

John Turner