What's the benefits of "aged" change water

[gwilcom]

As a converted freshwater hobbiest I understand the importance of water changes but what I don't understand is the notion of using water that is a week old to do them. If I can stabilize the water in an hour for temp, Ph, salinity etc why have the water age? I have seen it mentioned many places but none of the articales mentions why. Can someone clarify this for me?

 

[rbursek]

You should not have to let it set a week. The rule of thumb is over night circulateing, it lets the PH stablize and oxygenate, I have used it in a few hours after adding the salt.

 

[gwilcom]

24 hours is what I have been doing in spite of what I have read and I have to tell you, there are many references to week old water for changes in printed books as well as online. I was amazed and confused and for the life of me couldn't figure out the logic. Could this be an "old school" approach where the technology wasn't up to par? This was the only thing I could come up with.

 

[rbursek]

It must be, I have never read anything about a week. I looked on a bucket of RC salt, all it sez is the mix should be airated until an equalibruim of oxygen/carbon dioxcide is reached.

 

[Anonymous]

Seawater is not like wine. 4 or 5 hours should be sufficient to get the salt all dissolved, and good circulation to ensure the O2/CO2 is in good balance.

 

[scifi_3d_zoo]

Never heard of that. I would just forget about where you read that. It must have been something really old or outdated. Most of what i hear is 24 hours... with a pump to circulate it. You can get away with less than 1 hour if you want. Like most things you can get away with a lot .. it all depends on how picky you want to be... how sensitive the inhabitants are in your tank.

The purpose is to let the salt completely dissolve. Your checking on how much salt to put in by measuring the salinity. Well it might not be all dissolved and you keep adding more salt, thus overdoing it. But I've been doing it with a pump in 1 hour for years ok. The diff. might be very very slight if you let it marinate for 4-5 hours. If you're in no rush and you know exactly how much salt to add to exactly how much water you use in your container then just let it sit over night. After awhile you'll have it down second-nature.

 

[Anonymous]

Seawater is not like wine. 4 or 5 hours should be sufficient to get the salt all dissolved, and good circulation to ensure the O2/CO2 is in good balance.

I agree

 

[Anonymous]

In the waybackoldendays when I started the salt mixes were nowhere near as good as they are today and some people did advocate a considerable amount of time to age new water. That was to make sure everything dissolved and didn't precip out, which was a common problem back then. When I had more than one tank running, I always kept 50 gallons or so premade all the time in case I needed it. Now with only the nano I can do a huge water change with one 5 gallon bucket :lol: