SamH Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 Is the tap water in Auckland (Manukau) safe for fish or do I have to let it sit out? This question has been bugging me for ages and it would save me alot of time if I knew if I could put water directly into my tanks. Also, is warm/hot water safe for water changes? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 I put the hose in my fighter tanks to fill them - no additives, but this winter at nights I have been using water mixed from inside the house to refill the tanks. Last year I just used the outside tap but I think its been colder this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamH Posted July 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 I'm guessing that by the number of your beautiful fish that are alive that the tap water IS safe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 I'm in Manukau but i use stress coat or water conditioner to be on the safe side. pH is on the high side which is a real nuisance. Why don't you email Manukau water and ask them for a typical analysis of their water... I asked them about pH and they confirmed it can be as high as 8+ I didn't think to ask about their chlorine levels. If you find out, post it back here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamH Posted July 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 Yes, the high pH has almost made me switch to solely livebearers, rainbow fish and africans. Then I remember about tanks like these: (http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2 ... ol=0&id=62) (http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2 ... ol=0&id=91) (http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2 ... l=0&id=129) And see that putting in that extra effort is really worth it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 wow that first pic looks like a beach scene.. awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamH Posted July 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 Yeah! These guys are commited. Do you realise how big it is? (http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2 ... ol=0&id=62) This one's neat too: http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2 ... ol=0&id=64 Have a look through the '08 entires index: http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2 ... ry=0&vol=0 Some super wicked nano tanks *drools-on-keyboard* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquila Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 If you can just let the water sit over night to be on the safe side then it would be best. That way all the chlorine has a chance to evaporate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmsmith Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 I put the hose in my fighter tanks to fill them - no additives, but this winter at nights I have been using water mixed from inside the house to refill the tanks. Last year I just used the outside tap but I think its been colder this year. To combat that, I just haven't changed water all winter. Well, thats not true; my planted tank I just top up, the cichlid tank I have to change about 20% every 2 weeks but only because there is over 200 fish in a 3ft tank. They keep making babies and not eating them... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 If your water is chlorinated and you let it sit the chlorine will disperse but it will leave a lot of monocloramine which is used in the US to treat water supplies and is almost as deadly as chlorine. I have posted info on this a number of times and it will be available if you do a search. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David R Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 Sam if you are in Manukau and Adoge is in Epsom the water will be coming from two different places. You will find all tap water has a high pH to prevent it from eroding copper pipes, but the kh and gh are low and it is easy to drop the pH. I'm in Pakuranga so will be on the same supply as you. I fill a 200L barrel from the tap 24 hours before a water change and dose it with Prime to remove the chlorine etc (and put a heater in over winter to warm it up). I have a pump in the bottom of the barrel and pump it into my tanks after a water change. I have found the pH drops below 8 while sitting over night, and in my 800L 6' which has a few big bits of wood I've had to put some coral rubble in the sump to prevent the pH dropping below 6. I also do 250-300L water changes in my two biggest tanks and top up the remaining 50-100L straight out of the hose with no prime or pre-heating, and my fish are fine (clown loaches, angels, uaru, etc). How big are your tank/s and how much water do you usually change? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamH Posted July 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 I've only got small tanks at the moment... 81 Litre Community 54 Litre Betta 27 Litre Betta 28 Litre Spawning 85 Litre Rearing Tank, not started up yet. I usually run warm tap water and let it sit out for an hour. My pH is usually above 7 but if I don't change water for a while then it tends to drop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 If your water is chlorinated and you let it sit the chlorine will disperse but it will leave a lot of monocloramine which is used in the US to treat water supplies and is almost as deadly as chlorine. I have posted info on this a number of times and it will be available if you do a search. Alanmin How much of a problem are monochloramines in NZ? From what I understand , monochloramines are a chloramine that form between free available chlorine AND ammonia. Free available chlorine levels vary between supplies and range form "chlorinated supply" which is low level ... being less than 0.2g/L at pH8.0 and "Fully chlorinated" which is higher than 0.2g/L at pH 8.0 I got those figures from Drinking water standards for New Zealand The maximum allowable value of monochloramine for drinking water in NZ is 3mg/L In USA the EPA std for monochloramine in drinking water is 4mg/L as they more commonly use it as their disinfectant. It seems the free available chlorine is an important factor here.. I have emailed watercare Manukau for information on FAC and chloramine levels and will post back if I find anything out. What about fluorine? is that OK for fish? I also googled the affect of chloramines on fish .. and in levels as low as 1ppm (mg/L) fish can experience oxygen deprivation after it enters their bloodstream and reacts with their hemoglobin,.. and alanmin is correct.. it does not evaporate out or boil out.. has to be chemically neutralised. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted July 15, 2009 Report Share Posted July 15, 2009 Sam if you are in Manukau and Adoge is in Epsom the water will be coming from two different places... [lots of other info] Yes! Water quality in Auckland can vary a lot, depending on all sorts of factors. I once spoke at length to the water engineer at Metrowater (or whatever they are called) and he told me all about the different doses of stuff they use and why. The things I remember are: The water varies a lot because in some areas it comes from dams fed by rainwater, and in others it comes from underground aquifers or even the Waikato River They dose with more chlorine after rain because runoff can be contaminated and they want to kill all the bugsIn areas with newer concrete pipes the pH will be higher than old clay pipes (partly because it picks up the minerals from the cement and partly because they buffer the water to stop it dissolving the pipes too fast)In areas with old clay or iron pipes they add more chlorine to the local supply because there might be leaks that let ground water into the pipesWater will have a higher pH after its been left to sit overnight in concrete pipes, so always run it before doing a waterchange in the morning (wait till everyone in the neighbourhood has had their showers etc).Another reason to run the water is because if it's sitting in your household plumbing it can pick up traces of heavy metals (in old houses) or plastics(in new houses). I strongly recommend talking to someone at your local water supplier. If possible, even meet with them to discuss it and take along a notebook to note the important stuff. The guy I spoke to was delighted to have someone interested in his job and could have talked about it all day! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 thanks whetu I always run my tap in the mornings anyway.. before I put on the coffee or refill the cats and birds drinking bowls and before any waterchange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 When you add chlorine to water you get hypochlorous acid which reacts with the amines (in all proteins) and forms monochloramine. When you add more chlorine you get dichloramine and even more you get trichloramine. All these (and other reactions) form part of the "chlorine demand" in the water. You cannot get free available chlorine until this "chlorine demand" is satisfied. Therefore when the reaction is pushed towards trichloramine there will be virtually no monochloramine present. In the US they treat the water with monochloramie (made by reacting chlorine with ammonia) because chlorine will react with other impurities in the water and form some compounds that are not so nice (such as acetone) where as monochloramine will not. Monochloramine is not as effective in treating water as chlorine as is used in NZ but is still a strong oxidising agent. When people complain that the chlorine in a swimming pool is too strong and it is burning their eyes the problem usually is that the free available chlorine has been used up by contaminants in the water (such as urea) and this has pushed the chloramines back towards the monochloramine and this is what is burning their eyes. The problem is fixed by adding more chlorine. When you allow water to stand or aerate it to get rid of the chlorine the chloramines all move back to monochloramine and this will react with your fish the same as an under chlorinated swimming pool will with your eyes. Chlorine and all chloramines can be converted to more harmless chemicals with the addition of sodium thiosulphate. Flourine is not added to drinking water, flouride is sometimes. Drinking water will contain various impurites that add to the chlorine demand and will form chloramines Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 Flourine is not added to drinking water, flouride is sometimes. whoops I meant fluoride. Manukau water supply has fluoride added . (sigh) Thanks for the informative post alanmin. Manukau water has fwd my email onto the "appropriate team" so hopefully someone will get back to me about my questions and then I'll post the answers here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 I do not think that flouride would be any more toxic to fish than chloride (as in common salt) and I am not sure if it is removed by Sodium thiosulphate (the active ingredient in most additives used to neutralize chlorinated water). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 I got a reply from Manukau water with LOTS of readings taken from a sampling point one street over from wherer I live in Wattle Downs. (manukau) . I imagine the readings will be similar for other areas of Manukau. the blue text is mine so if I've got the name wrong.. send me back to 7th from chemistry at high school lol. If it's blank I haven't a clue what it is ! edit.. info on next post as this didn't display properly .. date of sample was 15.06.09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 that didn't display very well did it! is this better? I'll take out the dates and zone Code LocationCode Purpose Determinand Result Units AUC002MM Carnoustie Monitoring Cl2-R '0.88 mg/L Chlorine AUC002MM Carnoustie Monitoring Cl2-TotL '0.92 mg/ Chlorine AUC002MM Carnoustie Monitoring Eert18pa <1 /100 mL ? AUC002MM Carnoustie Monitoring HPC-1mlA '0 cfu/ml Bacterial count AUC002MM Carnoustie Monitoring pH-AT '7.9 pH Unit pH AUC002MM Carnoustie Monitoring Tert18pa <1 /100 mL ? AUC002MM Carnoustie Monitoring Turb '0.19 NTU ?turbulance probably pH was 7.9. Our area normally between 7.5-8.5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 I haven't seen results expressed that way so am a bit lost. The last one is tubidity and is a measure of the light penetration of the water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BikBok Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 I'm guessing that those levles of Chlorine are a fairly decent amount. (fully chlorinated) here's the other info I recieved.. not sure what is relevant or not, i've taken out some such as cyanide, arsenic, barium, boron etc... typical analysis of Manukau Water 2008 . MAV is Maxiumum allowable value first figure is the avg result.. 2nd figure is the MAV avg MAV GV Nitrite Nitrogen 0.002 0.21 or 32 mg/L N Nitrate Nitrogen 0.21 50 mg/L N Nitrogen 0.21 <1 mg/L Aluminium 0.024 0.1 mg/L mg/L Copper 0.0006 2 1 mg/L mg/L Iron 0.012 0.2 mg/L Mercury 0.00016 0.002 mg/L Lead 0.00023 0.01 mg/L Zinc 0.0026 1.5 mg/L Bromodichloromethane 0.015 0.06 mg/L Bromoform 0.002 0.01 mg/L Chloroform 0.018 0.2 mg/L Dibromochloromethane 0.01 0.15 mg/L THM Ratio 0.326 Total Dissolved Solids 95 Sulphate 15.3 Sodium 12 Calcium Hardness 32 Magnesium hardness 7.8 Total Hardness 39.5 Magnesium 1.9 Calcium 12.7 Now if anyone clever wants to interpret this and what it means for the fishies... go right ahead!! sorry.. i get to about half way and the page keeps jumping up.. making it diiffiuclt to redface the first firgures on the rest of the table. I did my best but it just won't display right in here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted July 16, 2009 Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 That's really interesting, BikBok! It's great that they gave you that level of detail (a bit of a shame that they didn't give you some interpretation though). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamH Posted July 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 16, 2009 i get to about half way and the page keeps jumping up That happened to me yesterday, very frustrating. Thank you very much for all the info, now all we need is a scientist to analayze it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted July 17, 2009 Report Share Posted July 17, 2009 What they try to get is a small quantity of free available chlorine at the testing point so they have to add enough to take up all the chlorine demand and then have a small quantity of free available chlorine left. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.