Water change temperature

[britfish]

I have a 215G tank and planned to do a 30G water change today and found the temp of the new water, which is in the garage with my RO/DI unit, was 90 deg! The temp in my tank is 78 so I was reluctant to add 30G of "hot" water as I wasn't sure how much it would raise the tank temp. My guess is that it would probably be around 2 deg. Would this be OK as it would happen over a very short time period?
This must be a common problem and I'd be interested to know how others have solved it.

[ErikH]

Let the water sit indoors overnight...

[des]

I've also wondered this

[britfish]

This isn't an option for me. I have 2 x 32G Brute trash cans in my garage. One has RO/DI water and the other other has new salt water. They are behind some stainless steel shelving and there's no way to move them when they are full. They weigh about 300lbs each! I pump the water from the garage to my tank when I do a water change.
I guess I could get another 32G trash can, put it in the house and pump the water into that and let it sit for a while then pump it into the tank. I think that much water is going to take at least 48 hours to cool down to 78 deg. What a pain!



Let the water sit indoors overnight...

[aquasport24]

You can place a gallon of ice jug in the container and have cool down that way. Make sure to use a power head with it too.

[britfish]

I tried that! I took all the ice from my icemaker and filled a ziplock bag and floated it in the trash can of new salt water together with some ice packs used in coolers. After 2 hours all the ice had melted and the temp had only dropped by 0.2 deg.
I think the only solution during the summer months when the ouside temp is high is to mix the new salt water in a trash can in the air conditioned house. In the winter it can be done in the garage by puting a heater in the trash can.
I was trying to avoid having a 32G Brute trash can full of water in my house as I've had one leak before!


You can place a gallon of ice jug in the container and have cool down that way. Make sure to use a power head with it too.

[RayAllen]

Before doing that get a few clip on fans and clip them to the cans. They will drop the temp a little. In the morning the temp shoould naturally be lower as well so you may have to make time to do it then.

[RayAllen]

For example the current 8:54 am temp right now is 78 degrees so now would be a good time to do your water change.

[britfish]

I've just put a 20" box fan on top of the trash can blowing directly onto the water. Water temp right now is 87.3 deg. I guess it cooled down a bit overnight. I'll check it around noon time and see what temp change there is in 3 hours.

[Bill S]

Take a couple of milk/coke jugs, and freeze them. Then dump 'em in before the change. In any case, 30 gallons is only 15% of your total, you would see a swing of maybe a degree, which should be fine.

[Ping]

I place the water change water in the house. I carry six, 5 gallon buckets from the storage tank in the garage into the house, and dump in the water change garbage can. I run the mixing pump for an hour, then add the salt. 24 or so hours later, the water temp is around 76 degrees. A little more work but also a little exercise. "Just my way of doing this".

[britfish]

OK, I'll give that a try. As long as I can limit the temp swing to 1 deg I'd be happy. I figured that a 15% water change would increase the temp by 15% of the difference between the two water temps. So to limit the swing to 1 deg I would need to get temp of my new water down to around 85 deg which should be possible, especially if I do it early morning. I'll freeze some jugs of water and drop them in the trash can tonite and see what the temp is in the morning.

[p00num3lli]

get like 4-5 5 gallon buckets, plit the water up betwee n them, then put a couple of ice bags in there, the water volume is less and should col it way down.

[britfish]

I place the water change water in the house. I carry six, 5 gallon buckets from the storage tank in the garage into the house, and dump in the water change garbage can. I run the mixing pump for an hour, then add the salt. 24 or so hours later, the water temp is around 76 degrees. A little more work but also a little exercise. "Just my way of doing this".
As a last resort I might have to do a similar thing. I'm trying not to move the water twice and not to have a trash can full of water in the house. Also, as I have two tanks and alternate the water changes, I'll be doing it virtually every weekend! That's too much exercise!

[ErikH]

Since you have two tanks, maybe you could buy a small chiller to hook up?

[JeffCo]

you could also do smaller water changes, do multiple smaller changes so it's not such a big dump of high temp water.