water change using hot water

[sayid]

Hello every one ;
I have been using a mixture of hot and cold water straight from the tap in to my 500 l tank ,i don't age my water since ph swing in 24 h is minimal ( tap ph is 7.1 after 24 hours ph 6.8 ) i add SAFE seachem to the tank prior to addition of water . Just recently i was talking to a friend who said that by using hot water i introduce copper and lead in to my tank which in long term these toxins will poison my fish . my hot water tank is made of stain steel but my hot water pipes are made of copper so the question is
. How many of you use mixture of hot and cold water ?
. How many of you use cold water only and rely on your heater to bring the temp up ?
. If you use cold water only what sort of temp difference are you happy with ?
. When you vacuum the poop from the the bottom of tank in a bucket and you replace the bucket do you bother adding PRIME OR SAFE or you don,t bother ?
Thanks for taking interest .
Sayid

[Hollowman]

Sorry for the later reply Sayid,

I have always shied away from this due to the copper risk, not lead so much these days. Even though the risk is relatively low, I still wouldn't use the hot water from the tap. What I have done though is boiled the kettle and added to large containers of aged water to raise the temp before water changing.

[Sabrina]

Hi Sayid,
I use to boil their tank water in the kettle, but when i brought the big tanks it was to difficult doing so many kettles. So i started using luke warm water from the tap. So you turn the tap to hot and then slowly turn it back to colder until it feels luke warm to touch, you place the bucket under it and then check with a digital thermostat that its around 27-30c. I have been doing this for the past 4 months and i dont see anything wrong with it. When vacumming poop, you should always add Prime or Safe to the new water! Just like any new water..

[sayid]

Thanks guys for the replies ,this was one of those topics which was bugging me for some time so i am compromising and i put cold water with minimum amount of hot water so that the result would be about 2 c below my usual temperature and rely on the tank heater to bring it up to 29 c . We all try to keep our discus in the happiest environment we possibly can .
Sayid

[mattgoanna]

I must admit that I do use hot water from the tap from time to time, but only if I do more than 50 percent. My fish don't seem to mind the cold water. I hit the tank with Prime and then just stick the hose in. They are normally up looking for food again within 10 mins.

[stretch5]

during winter fill my 6 foot tank i drain about 90% and fill with tap, at the same time im filling 4L bottles with hot tap water and adding same time.
By doing this i get my tank to 30c straight away. I dose with safe. Finally summers here in Aus so can just fill straight from the tap now no need to add hot water from the tap.

[discusriver]

i just seen this thread,what happens in storage water heaters (gas and electric)sludge builds up on the inside of the storage tank.this makes hot water from these tanks very hit or miss.in my case i have expensive wild discus and would not risk there health.also i see nothing about you guys ageing your water.using tap water without ageing at least over night in a container with airstones is detrimental to discus health as they dislike fluctuating ph.

[Hollowman]

I had a 6x2x2 tank to age and heat my water. I used a mix of RO and filtered water .

[sayid]

Thanks stretch ,discusriver and Hollowman for giving your personal experience , i have started to minimize using hot water from the tap even though my hot water system has got stain steel
storage unit .