# Water mains flushing



## Nat N (8 Feb 2013)

Hi all,
We received a letter this week from our water supply Company. They were informing about "improving our water supply" and doing an "essential cleaning of water mains" in our area. This is not the first time and it is good of them to let us know. However, the period they stated is much longer than usual. I understood that it will be any day during this period which is nearly two weeks. It was easy previous times - this "risk" periods were no more than a week, so I just kept this in mind for water changes. Now, as it is nearly two weeks, I am a bit worried that they will do this flushing in our street exactly the day I decide to use some tap water for a water change. I read some time ago what chemicals they use but cannot remember now - and cannot find it again either! And the Company goes on in the letter that the water is safe to drink... but is it safe for water changes???
So, the question is: is it really O.K. to do the water changes or not? I dose EI in half of my tanks, so water changes are ideally something I don't want to miss...


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## ceg4048 (8 Feb 2013)

Hi Nat,
		   It might be that they put a higher concentration of prophylactic in the water supply to kill germs in order to ensure that it's still safe to drink. If so, then that would be most probably a higher level of Chlorine and /or Chloramine. If that is true then it can be most easily dealt with by ensuring use of any dechlor that is known to neutralize Chloramine.

Cheers,


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## dw1305 (8 Feb 2013)

Hi all,


ceg4048 said:


> If that is true then it can be most easily dealt with by ensuring use of any dechlor that is known to neutralize Chloramine.


 Yes, will almost certainly be a large dose of chloramine. Personally I wouldn't do any large water changes with it, could you store water before they start?

cheers Darrel


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## Nat N (8 Feb 2013)

Hi Clive and Darrel,
Thanks! The flusing period started today, unfortunately... So, no water stock apart from two water buckets (about 20 litres - I do not have large water storing containers, as I probably should have)... However, I did water changes on every tank this week. Low tech tanks should be (sort of) O.K. There is some rain forecast on Sunday and Monday - so I may try the rain water at last... Also, I just put the new filter media in my DI filter, so may be doing half of normal amount of water changes mixing DI/rain water with the tap water? For some reason, I thought they added something else to wash away mineral deposits from the pipes as well as Chlorine and Chloramine... Our water is not that hard - 7-ish German degrees according to the water Company website (comes out slightly harder at home), so I may give that mixture a try (plus opulous amounts of dechlorinator)...


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## Ed Seeley (9 Feb 2013)

Cut back feeding and maybe dosing if you're currently using EI (though you shouldn't really need to do this) and skip a water change.  Your tank might then need a few weeks of higher maintenance to get it back on track and looking perfect but nothing should come to permanent harm.


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## biffster (9 Feb 2013)

we went through this last year for ten days i used my lfs who supplied me
with RO water the only thing i had to find was my own 25ltr water tubs
which i already had and i cut my water changes drown from twice a week
down to once a week i also cut back on my feeding to once every two days
i don't know how i used to do when i first started keeping fish i used to do a
water change once every three or four week and i didn't have that many deaths
mind you saying that i don't think the fish are as hardy today as they were back
in the 70s


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## dw1305 (9 Feb 2013)

Nat N said:


> For some reason, I thought they added something else to wash away mineral deposits from the pipes as well as Chlorine


 They aren't meant to, what is meant to happen is high velocity pulses of water are sent down the water main, which dislodges all the rust and carbonate, which is then tapped off through a special drain. The problem is that often they find leaks during the process, which is when the chloramine dosing comes in.



> Cut back feeding and maybe dosing if you're currently using EI (though you shouldn't really need to do this) and skip a water change. Your tank might then need a few weeks of higher maintenance to get it back on track and looking perfect but nothing should come to permanent harm.........i cut my water changes drown from twice a week down to once a week i also cut back on my feeding to once every two days


Good advice.


biffster said:


> first started keeping fish i used to do a water change once every three or four week and i didn't have that many deaths mind you saying that i don't think the fish are as hardy today as they were back in the 70s


I used to do the same in the 70's, but I managed to kill all mine on a regular basis.

cheers Darrel


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## Nat N (10 Feb 2013)

Thanks again everyone - really appreciated.




dw1305 said:


> They aren't meant to, what is meant to happen is high velocity pulses of water are sent down the water main, which dislodges all the rust and carbonate, which is then tapped off through a special drain. The problem is that often they find leaks during the process, which is when the chloramine dosing comes in.


 
Thanks Darrel - The Company says that there may be "discoloured water" running which is:
Quote from their website:
Whilst we appreciate any discoloured water will not look pleasant, we assure you it is not harmful to health and it is completely safe to drink. The orange / brown colour is sediment that builds up in our water mains over time and has become dislodged due to our flushing work.
Unquote.
They suggest to run a water tap for 30-40 mins to clear the water... I am guessing that the overall water chemistry will be different to what my tanks are used to, so a "holiday mode" with reduced lighting/feeding, etc. is the best option. I might attempt water changes (reduced) but might let the tanks be and see if I can use this experience in the future for a longer than a week holiday.


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## Nat N (15 Feb 2013)

Hi all,
An update – and a kind of warning for the others. I have bought some RO water for water changes. I already have a tub of Sera Mineral Salt which I planned to use to get the RO water fit for water changes.... HOWEVER... I measured the Sera salts in sufficient quantities, added them to the RO water. I measured the TDS as well in the water after adding the salts – it was quite high which surprised me as I did not expect that (312 on TDS meter). So, I diluted the new water with some more RO bringing the TDS to about 140. So far, so good. Being a curious person, I decided to test the water with the API test which I still have (sorry, Clive)... The test showed – to my surprise and shock, really! – that there was only a trace of KH and NO GH at all. Just to let you know, Sera says in their instructions that 5 g of their salts raise KH by 0.6 and GH by 1.3 for every 100 of litres of water. They also say that their salts contain Micros. As my RO water treated with Sera salts produced a measurement of 140 on the TDS meter and the GH/KH tests showed almost nothing, I could not resist and just bought a Salifert Calcium test. (Perhaps API test reagents are out of date – I thought). Salifert calcium test came as a zero calcium as well!!!! The only thing I can think about – I was “lucky” to buy a faulty tub of Sera salts and all the TDS I am getting are from Micros. I than dissolved a little bit of Magnesium Nitrate and Calcium Nitrate in water, tested it again – and the GH have started to show on the tests (and the TDS meter shows 170 now).
So, here it goes: testing, however inaccurate, could be vital in these situations. I would be completely oblivious to the fact that I am doing water changes with water overloaded with Micros but containing no hardiness at all! Never mind the RO water I bought is almost wasted as I cannot use it for water changes as it is (only a few quid loss at the end of the day) but more importantly – how much I would affect the balance of my tanks by water changes just trusting the “Sera Quality”! Just an observation.
P.S. Believe me, I did numerous tests and numerous measurements with my TDS meter....


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## dw1305 (16 Feb 2013)

Hi all,
Looking at the figures, I think that Sera Salts are probably mainly salt - NaCl. I think "Seachem Equilibrium" works, or you can make your own mix from Epsom salts, calcium chloride and potassium bicarbonate.

cheers Darrel


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## Ed Seeley (16 Feb 2013)

I've used seachem equilibrium and Kent RO right and both add a decent amount of GH with no KH and little rise in salinity.  However you don't really need them.  I used to add a teaspoon full of RO salt to 25l of water just to add some minerals back for the plants when keeping soft water fish if I added anything.  I mainly used both these products, mixed with sodium bicarb, when keeping Tanganyikans using RO, which gave excellent results.


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## Ed Seeley (16 Feb 2013)

BTW with the amount of fertilisers salts most people add I think you'll still be fine to use that water, just keep up your water changes afterwards with tap water.


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## Nat N (17 Feb 2013)

Thanks Darrel and Ed.



dw1305 said:


> Looking at the figures, I think that Sera Salts are probably mainly salt - NaCl


I did try to find detailed information on Sera's website. On the tub, they proudly display "Mg, K, Ca" and say that these are the salts for treating RO water... Never mind...





Ed Seeley said:


> BTW with the amount of fertilisers salts most people add I think you'll still be fine to use that water, just keep up your water changes afterwards with tap water.


 
That is what I ended up doing. Will have my own mix as Darrel suggested ready for the future...


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## Nat N (8 Mar 2013)

A quick update. I had to go away to attend a funeral (a sad matter) and that meant that my tanks were left even longer without a proper water change (a friend was asked to look after my cat and feed the fish once during my husbans and I being away for a few days). I can say that the result of water change with the RO water with "inferior" Sera salts has worked. All of my low tech tanks did not show any change whatsoever (which is even better if you take into the consideration that most of them can be classed as nanos - "unstable" apparently in comparison to bigger tanks). My hight tech ones were showing a bit of distress (but only a bit): I limited lighting but this still did not help to prevent some algae showing. The high tech ones, hopefully, are on the mend and low tech ones "did not notice" the lack of water changes! All in all, it could have been much worse. One thing - this experience made me to like low TDS water for my water changes from time to time. Rain water experiments are on the cards (still waiting until it rains properly).


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