Urgent fishtank advice needed!

[Disastrous]

Hi all,

Was just about to start my usual water change in my tropical tank and have discovered my boiler has broken down and I have no hot water. I normally use a warm/cold mix to approx. the correct tank temperature to minimise the shock when I add the fresh water but obviously can't do this now (and given that I'm away with work for the next two days, I can't get an engineer or the water changed until the end of the week)...

So, my question is, will really cold water be too much of a shock? Is it ok to add freezing cold water from the tap and let the tank thermometer bring it up to temp??

Any advice much appreciated...

[westtra]

kettle? or is tank too big for that?

[Disastrous]

It's probably a bit on the big side, to be honest.

It's just ocurred to me to use the electric shower - is that mental? I think it'll work...

[Toyless]

What size is the tank and how bigs the water change ?

I do a weekly 15% change on my 240ltr and never bother with hot water.

[Disastrous]

Toyless said:

What size is the tank and how bigs the water change ?

I do a weekly 15% change on my 240ltr and never bother with hot water.

It's only 60 litre and I normally do 15% as well...I'll give it a go!

[Toyless]

Just remember smaller tanks suffer shocks the most - a nice large volume of water is more stable.

If you're that worried, then 15% of 60ltrs is only 9 litres - a kettle would bring that up to temp easily.

[croyde]

Or leave the water in a bucket overnight and that should make sure that the water is at room temp and not such a shock.

That's the advice given to me.

[Heathwood]

Just delay doing the water change for a couple of days.

[Disastrous]

Thanks all, I went with the leccy shower option in the end

Seems to be fine so far - it's just me that's bloody freezing now!

[Funk]

croyde said:

Or leave the water in a bucket overnight and that should make sure that the water is at room temp and not such a shock.

That's the advice given to me.

I was about to suggest this.

[Jasandjules]

Do you not have a spare heater you can use.....

[Raverbaby]

If you were really stuck you could boil water and put it in a bottle then float it in the tank.
Not sure how long it would maintain a heat for though.

[tenohfive]

Anything less than 50% and cold water will be fine. If anything I've found most fish are quite happy playing in the water as it's being added (I fill most of my tanks with a hosepipe.)

I'm about to do a 70-80% change on my 370L, so I'll be refilling in stages but I've never bothered heating water unless I'm doing more than 50%.

[Tiggsy]

Trop fish are normally fine with water temp changes - in the wild there are river run offs and drought/floods that cause huge swings. That said, for the sake of a week why worry, just the leave the water change. If your tank cant handle a week without fresh water then your filtration/stock is no good.