Water changes cold/hot hard/soft problem

[Celeste]

As I'm cycling my 120 which will soon be stocked with African cichlids I am wondering how I can tackle the water change dilemma I have. My tank is in the basement and I can run a hose from the laundry room sink whose cold water faucet bypasses the water softener (and has a Ph of 8.0). So to do a water change of 30%, or whatever, I would obviously have to turn on some hot water, but that water has been softened and has all the whatever in it from the water softener.

So how can I get around this problem?

[aharris]

You could buy some 30g plastic drums to hold the water in. Buy a couple of cheap aquarium heaters and put them in the drums. Heat the water overnight and do your water change the next day. The trick will be to make sure you can store enough water to do the change so things may be a little off the first few times.

[Celeste]

Thanks but I don't really have room for drums. And how would I get the water from the drums to the tank efficiently and quickly?

[aharris]

You'd either have to invest in a pump or work a kind of gravity set-up where you could siphon water from the drums to the tank. Generally, if you set the drums high enough, you could theoretically siphon enough water out that you could physically dump the rest without oo much trouble.

[merlyn2221]

Any chance you could fit one of those "rain barrels" in the basement? Then you would still have the water, and could heat it, but it would take up less space. Otherwise this sounds like a job for a plumber to hook up a split line from your water heater (hopefully before the softener) and one from the cold to another that has a faucet end on it. If you can sweat pipes, you might actually be able to do it yourself, too. Just a suggestion. If you can sweat pipes, use MAPP gas, not propane...gets hotter and seals the flux better.

[matt1066]

Why dont you do the 30% change with just the cold tap?

If your heater is strong enough, your tank would probably only drop a couple of degrees for a short time.

Why not try a 20% chg, and see what happens to the tank temp when you just use the cold tap?

Regards,

Matthew