Boiling tap water. ok?

mystic7

mystic7

Member
Don't ask me why I have nothing to do on such a gorgeous day, but while preparing water for tomorrow's water change I got the brilliant idea of boiling the water, a pot at a time. Didn't take me long, only about 3 hours. Anyway, is it a good way of getting rid of nasties in the water? I've already added salt and I know there's no point in testing salinity until the water gets down to about 80* sometime later today.
But my question remains, does it do any good or do the bad nutrients, nitrates and stuff stay in the water?
 
darknes

darknes

Active Member
It doesnt do any good. Unless you were to completely boil the water, collect the steam, and then condense the steam, you'd have pure water.
 
aquaman

aquaman

Member
I have read that you should not, something about removing the oxygen from the water, but I really don’t remember the whole this. it was good enough for me to know there was down sides to doing it. Someone else here should be able to give you a better answer, but if I were you I would not add it to your tank, until you know it is safe.
Aquaman
 
mystic7

mystic7

Member
Well, it was "done" as of 12:30 p.m. and I don't plan on doing the water change until tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully I'll get more info by then. As for oxygen, it doesn't take much to re-oxygenate water. I've got an air pump in there and I stir it occasionally. There does seem to be some sort of scum developing on the top that doesn't desolve, though. When I stir it it just sinks then comes back up to the top.
 
nytrillium

nytrillium

Member
Well... basically what your talking about doing is boiling water to remove the bacteria/viruses and such which is pointless.
Like darknes said unles you were to condense the water vapor and collect that. Its basically Distilled water at the end. Which, no isnt good, but it is similar to RO/DI water and you should treat it the same way. Airate, add trace elements, let it sit 24 hours.
Hope that helps.
 
unleashed

unleashed

Active Member
As all other have stated, No boiled water is not good you have removed all of the oxygen. Its does kill off bacteria yes, but what it does not do is remove harmful metals from your water.as a Ro unit would.chlorine evaperates in 24 hr from the water as it is unless you have co2 to add oxygen to your tank you have depleted what was naturally there by this process i would not use it.if you have to use tap use a water conditioner made to remove harmiful chemiclas such as chlorine ,chlorimine, I use prime to my tap water it also detoxifies amonias and nitrates .on a normal basis I use RO/DI water and add prime to that.
 
mystic7

mystic7

Member
Thanks, NYTrillium. I am doing so.
Unleashed, I did add Prime to the water. And I would guess, since it's still wet, that there's a bit of O left in the H2O, right?
 
nytrillium

nytrillium

Member
yes there is technically O still in it because it is h20 but what he is reffering to is Dissolved "o" (the kind that hte fish can use for respiration). When you boil the water you remove all the dissolved o Co2 and any other suspended gas in the water. So in order to replace that O you would need to airate it for a while like i was saying.
 
unleashed

unleashed

Active Member
Originally Posted by mystic7
Thanks, NYTrillium. I am doing so.
Unleashed, I did add Prime to the water. And I would guess, since it's still wet, that there's a bit of O left in the H2O, right?
yes that is true but if you think back to your school science days for a moment very simple example what boils faster hot water or cold water.answer is cold water why ?oxygen !heating the water reduces the amount of oxygen in the water. so now as you let it cool you will have to airiate water to reintroduce oxygen to the water.its not nessesary to go through all that .
 
mudplayerx

mudplayerx

Active Member
Boiling the water makes it worse because you evaporate some of the water, making the concentration of chlorine, minerals, etc greater. As was said, you'd have to distill the water, which is difficult and dangerous to do at home. Getting an RO machine would be way cheaper than using all the gas/electricity necessary to distill water.
 
nytrillium

nytrillium

Member
umm unleashed? im sorry but i dont see your logic on the hot water/cold water thing. Hot water will boil faster no matter what... the overall temperature change is less wiht hot water and it requires less energy to bring it to a boil. That outweighs the dissolved oxygen thing.
 
unleashed

unleashed

Active Member
Originally Posted by NYTrillium
umm unleashed? im sorry but i dont see your logic on the hot water/cold water thing. Hot water will boil faster no matter what... the overall temperature change is less wiht hot water and it requires less energy to bring it to a boil. That outweighs the dissolved oxygen thing.
acually its just opposite if you place a pan of cold tap water on the stove and then a pan of hot tap water the cold water will boil faster because it contains more oxygen.odd as it sounds this was taught in elementary science class
 
nytrillium

nytrillium

Member
I dont want to start a huge arguement but what you learned in elementary school is wrong. Go give it a try quickly... Hot tap water vs. Cold tap water. :notsure: I took AP physics and im pretty sure that the hot will boil faster.
 
nytrillium

nytrillium

Member
Just did it cause i needed a cup of tea anyway.... I used 2 cups of cold water and 2 cups of hot water. in the same pot. same burner on high. The cold water took about 5 min. and the hot boiled in half that.
 
unleashed

unleashed

Active Member
Originally Posted by NYTrillium
Just did it cause i needed a cup of tea anyway.... I used 2 cups of cold water and 2 cups of hot water. in the same pot. same burner on high. The cold water took about 5 min. and the hot boiled in half that.

now heres what you did .you boiled cold water took 5 min ok .then uses the same pot for hot water?
try identical pots side by side on the stove add hot water to one cold to the other.same heat range same time them see which pot comes to a full boil first.
everyone think about this for a minute when you boil water for cooking who starts off with hot water? say for spegetti
another way if you think about it if you freeze cold and hot water in an ice tray the hot freezes first lack of oxygen
 
nytrillium

nytrillium

Member
i cooled the pot off before i put the hot water in it. And i preheated the burner both times so it was red hot for both tests. and I use hot water for spaghetti if im in hurry.
 
unleashed

unleashed

Active Member
well if im mistaken about the boiling part i know im not about the freezing part.
either way its been entertaining for the most parts to accually have to think about something so complex but simple at the same time at least
none the less i think we can all agree that boiling the water is not nessisarily a good idea for use in tanks
 
nytrillium

nytrillium

Member
There are very special circumstances that can cause hot water to freeze faster than cold like you were saying. This is called the Mpemba Effect. It is not usually the case and happens in very rare circumstances. I found a good website explaining both boiling and freezing.
http://itotd.com/articles/521/
and 2 google answers listings
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=15465
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=15464
Mpemba Effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect
 
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