Alright I was wandering if boiling tap water gets the water cleaner. I want to do a water change today and i am thinking about boiling my water. What gets eliminated if i boil water and will it help my ph stay down?
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Boiling water for my tank?
October 1st, 2008 · 3 Comments
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Mrs. Mother Nature // Oct 1, 2008
When you boil water, all the chemicals that have been added evaporate.
Yes it does get it cleaner from a fish’s point of view.
You should add conditioner as well though.
2 Stillwaters // Oct 1, 2008
When you boil water at the most it probably removes most of the bacteria but does not remove stuff like heavy metals & other toxic material that are the real danger. Not to mention the side effect is to remove all the dissolved oxygen so your fish will be gasping for air at the surface very soon. And it can take quite a while for the water to cool down to the right temperature range.
Personally I think it’s a bad idea. Just using normal tap water is fine together with water conditioner that removes chlorine, chloramine & heavy metals. If you need to bring down your pH slightly, use natural methods like putting in driftwood or bogwood, dried sea almond or oak leaves, dried peat, commercial blackwater extract (costly in long run). Running CO2 in a planted tank also brings down the pH. But note it is far more important to have a stable pH than to follow textbook pH values for your fish. Messing with your pH is not a good idea if you’re inexperienced as pH crashes will be a disaster.
3 Ghost Shrimp Fan // Oct 1, 2008
Do not boil your water!
When you boil water, you remove all the dissolved oxygen in it! So, it’s very bad for the fish. The hotter water is, the less dissolved oxygen it can contain. That’s why boiling water bubbles so much, the oxygen is leaving it like crazy! You are also getting rid of lots of minerals that the fish need as well as making it uninhabitable for the beneficial bacteria that you want to encourage to grow in your fish tank.
If you want to lower your PH, try using rain water for your water changes. Rain water has a naturally low PH. You can also add driftwood, soaked dried brown oak leaves or peat to naturally lower the PH of your water. All of those things add tannic acid to your water which lowers PH.