Anybody use geyser water for their WCs?

I've been wondering about using geyser water that's cooled down for WCs. From the planted tank discussions it always seems that water loses its ability to hold gases significatly as temps goes from 18 to 30 degrees Celsius. So water coming from the geyser at 35-45 degrees Celsius should have almost no chlorine in it??

 

@rudig - I use hot water from the geyser to get the right temp for my water changes (I dont have a heater for this purpose) but I use Nutrafin Aqua Safe and Nutrafin Cycle to prepare my water.

 

@MarcHawke
Do you rate its also better from a chlorine perspective?

@Dirk
Maybe someone clued up in chemistry like Professor Belstedt could shed some light on this? Would be muchly appreciated!!

 

I also use hot water from Geyser , mix with a bit of cold water and use the aquasafe..

 

hi there, i use Geyser water but still de-chlorinate, have a look at this link

http://www.hindu.com/seta/2005/08/25/stories/2005082500271600.htm

explains the process, it seams Ph levels increase when water is boiled then goes almost back to what it was but slighlty higher..

 

@rudig - I'm not a chemical engineer, I'm a civil engineer :bigsmile: so your guess would be as good as mine. Hopefully an expert can give us an answer.

 

I use Geyser water and cold water to cool down, and prepare the water with Seachem Safe. And until today it was SAFE, lol no pun intended.

 

Hi Guys,

One needs to use a bit of common sense and some science here.

Firstly, water in the geyser certainly looses gasses when it is heated up, so the chlorine is reduced, but as you draw water from your geyser, new water jets in at the same time so you could certainly still have chlorine in the water. Then you actually need to find out from your municipality which sort of chlorination agent they use. In the olden days it all used to be hypochloride based, like the stuff you chuck into your swimming pool, but this is lost through heating or aeration and may not be active enough to control negative bugs. As a result, new chlorination agents have been introduced for water sterilization and these include chloramine T. This is a dissolved substance and cannot be removed by aeration or heating as a gas, it remains there for much longer. This is unfortunately also much more dangerous for your fishes, so for this you need a dechlorinator, it does not matter whether you let the water stand and degas, this will not dechlorinate it. So my logic tells me you need to dechlorinate if you are using geyser water unless you know that your municipality does not use chloramine T. In Somerset West where I stay they still use hypochloride and then pump the water up the hill to where I stay through three smaller cement reservoirs. These blow off all chlorine and I add water directly from my tap into my aquaria without any problems. However, I cannot even tell other people in Somerset West to do the same because if they stay down in the part of town at the bottom of the hill where their water comes from the first reservoir they have a problem and need a dechlorinator. What I am saying is that you can save yourself a lot of money if you find out from your municipality how your water system works.

Then you also need to be careful with geyser water. You need to know what sort of geyser you have got. Modern geysers are coated with enamel, but older geysers have bare copper which is very dangerous because it increases the copper levels of water which can cause your fishes to die and to have all sorts of ongoing chronic disease problems.

From both of the points that I have raised, you can see that you need to do your homework to decide how to manage your water from your geyser or from your tap.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

@DirkJust a curve ball...What is the difference between COLD water passing through our copper pipes, and then into our tanks, and HOT water passing through copper pipes, into copper lined geyser and into our tanks? Do I assume that the hot water would absorb more copper than cold... hence the caution? Tx

 

Yes, it is the hot water that actually dissolves more copper than the cold water.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

@Dirk Thanks for the info on this prof, it explaint alot to me why i have been having so many problems as i live in a house with old copper geaser and pypes,

 

Sorry for the bump but a simple question. If I do a 20L water change (cold matured rain water) can I add about 2L boiled (kettle) tap water and only treat with dechlor for 2L. This way I don't need to wait half the day to heatup the 20L.

 

Squatty,

I can give you even better news. If you boil those two litres from your tap, that chases away all the chlorine just by boiling the water and if you add that to rainwater, you don't need to add ANY dechlor. But you must be careful not to make your water too soft in this way.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

same here except without the additive.

 

My GH=8 it dropped from 16 when I was using tap water KH=5, previously it was 10. It dropped over a period of a month. Now I only need to get sufficient lighting for my 2foot.

 

I have always used geyser water, but nowdays I will rather heat up the water with a 300W fishtank heater, after I have added some Seachem Prime to get rid of chlorine and chloramine, I just think that it is safer for my fish doing it this way.