Aged Water for water changes?

[gmccreedy]

Hello all,

I am a newbie to these forums (although active on many other fish related forums) and have a question regarding some comments I see scattered throughout these forums regarding "aged" water for water changes.

What is the real premise for this? Is it just temperature stability that is the goal? Is it just the convenience of having the water ready to go without having to deal with dechlorinating and having to temp control the inflow? Are there other benefits that I am missing?

I personally do not have discus yet, but am doing my homework to get there.

I have a 72 gallon setup now thats running its cycle. I have a water changer setup that is doing two 10% water changes daily. I refill with split tap (run through carbon) and RO water without temp control and I only really see a minor drop in temp (maybe 2 degrees) for a short period of time. Should this be a serious concern when I do finally get Discus?

Do I really need to think about aging water for some reason?

Thanks in advance to any guidance you can give me.

[White Worm]

Also stability of pH with temp. Most like that they can make all the adjustments to their water and check things before it enters the discus tank. I just use tap water and prime. It just depends on your water. Dont sweat a couple degrees difference.

[gmccreedy]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I inject CO2 (its a planted tank) for my pH target levels (and is controlled by an aquacontroller). I have pretty hard water, thus the reason I am cutting the tap with RO water and I was targeting a kH of about 4ish.

So, I am assuming if that is really all it is, I may be fine? LOL.

[White Worm]

yep

[Rod]

The main reason i age water is to offgas it. Ever noticed how tiny bubbles sometimes form all over the glass in freshly drawn tapwater, how sometimes the water parameters change after 24hours vigorous aeration? If you do not offgas then all these process' take place in your aquarium instead of the safety of your water treatment tank.

Rod

[Ed13]

The time in the "aging" container can also be spent testing water parameters and adjusting values like pH, TDS etc. It's also a good time to see if the water is good, maybe the water co cleaned or installed new pipes etc.

Might also add that this practice of aging water, checking parameters and even bare-bottom tanks among others are increasingly popular among reefers, and they thought discus keepers were crazy!:)

[gmccreedy]

Interesting. This is something I am certainly going to consider in the future.

Thanks guys.