Zëbulon wrote in
:


"Michael" wrote in message
. net...
I am trying to remove some medication and lower the organics load. I
am preparing to do a water change, but the water temp here is low and
I don't want to shock the tank temperature wise.

You don't have heated water in your home? I take *warm water* right
from the tap, dechlorinate it (no chlorimines here) and put it
straight in the tank. :-)


Classic advice says that warm tap water for water changes is ill-advised,
if you have copper pipes. Copper transports into the hot water pipes/tank
at a level unnoticed by/harmless to people, but potentially troublesome for
long-term fish health. Most of that transfer happens at the significantly
higher temperatures in your HW tank, but also from laying hot in the copper
line (which is why the cold water line is preferred).
I hear that copper leaching may be lessened with newer HW "on-demand"
systems, because exposure time at elevated temperature is reduced.

Meh. If your tap water chemical treatment has a metal chelator in it, it
should take care of almost all the copper in there.

$0.02

DZ
AW