UGH! Hot pipes...

[FINWIN]

I'm sorry that happened and glad your fish are ok. But don't you have a way to control the water temp out of your sink? when i refill my tank i have a cold water valve and a hot water valve and i just adjust them until i feel the water temps matches tank water

I do. I'll post up a pic. Normally the cold tap is wide open and the hot is at about 30 degrees angle. Because my hands have high tolerance for heat I learned NOT to go by the hand method...I nearly cooked a fish doing that once. When the water felt hot even to my hands I knew it was bad.

 

[FINWIN]

Yeah its like while I'm taking a shower and my wife flushes the toilet i either get frozen water or hot water but it usually only lasts about 10-15 seconds. i also do large 80% WC on my 125 and every 5 minutes or so i check them temp to make sure its as i set it.
Also i know plumbing and stuff can be different in other countries i'm in NYC so our sink facets are pretty easy to work with

Sometimes when the hot water isn't used as much (like during this insane summer) there's a higher ratio of hot to cold...on days like that I'll just run cold and leave the hot off, there's no point trying to adjust. Even then the water is reasonably warm, say 77-78ish. I use digital food thermometers but because I don't use them for what they're intended for the internal components stop working even with a battery change. But this episode reminds me I need to get more.

 

[FINWIN]

I'd be very cautious about adding salt in a situation like this. Dissolved salt decreases the amount of dissloved oxygen in the water similar to the way that elevated temperatures do. Both together might not be the best idea.

Mixer taps can be purchased as "pressure-balancing" version which are supposed to keep the outgoing temperature constant despite changes in the usage of cold or hot water elsewhere in the house from flushing toilets, etc. I have them in my showers and they do pretty much prevent unpleasant surprises there, but I still don't trust them completely for aquarium use.

I also have a pressure-balancing mixing valve in my basement, associated with the small on-demand tankless water heater I installed for my aquariums. Because my house has a pressure-tank water delivery system, which cycles from about 30psi to 50psi while pumping water, the pressure-balancing mixer valve still isn't perfect and I monitor it closely while doing fill-ups if using the water heater.

I hope you realize how lucky you were, FINWIN , that you caught this in time. I think you were minutes or even seconds away from disaster.

Trust me I know I was lucky. If my fish ended up cooked I'd never forgive myself, especially after all the recent losses. I didn't add the salt until hours later. But I'm happy to report everyone is fine. When I got back in this evening they were waiting for me and hoovered up 4mm pellets like they were going out of style!

 

[FINWIN]

Normal position of the tap downstairs. Maximum temp I ever measured was 142-144 degrees.

 

[FINWIN]

thermometers I use. Cheap and accurate.

 

[cockroach]

Sometimes when the hot water isn't used as much (like during this insane summer) there's a higher ratio of hot to cold...on days like that I'll just run cold and leave the hot off, there's no point trying to adjust. Even then the water is reasonably warm, say 77-78ish. I use digital food thermometers but because I don't use them for what they're intended for the internal components stop working even with a battery change. But this episode reminds me I need to get more.

I run purely cold water. Winter and summer as I have no heaters in any tanks and no room heater. The basement does maintain a few degrees warmer, or cooler, depending on season but I have learnt to keep fish the simplest way I can because my time for care is limited but I want a fishroom. Lol. Catch 22.

Running no heaters, no heating, and pure treated tap water into tanks makes life easy, simple and often enjoyable. However, winter the room does tend to slow down a little as tanks temps drop. In summer, the fish are active, hungry and messy so larger water changes are needed. That is where the hot pipes become an issue on weekends. During the week I only get to tend to room at about 8:30pm or after so pipes usually cooled down by then.

 

[cockroach]

......Maximum temp I ever measured was 142-144 degrees.

Sweet Mother of Mary that is insane. Don't think ours gets quite that high as we have a large, maybe 15-20K liter community water tank covered inside a building. I will measure one day when it is hot. See how it compares.

How does yours get to that temp? And how long does it stay there?

 

[FINWIN]

Sweet Mother of Mary that is insane. Don't think ours gets quite that high as we have a large, maybe 15-20K liter community water tank covered inside a building. I will measure one day when it is hot. See how it compares.

How does yours get to that temp? And how long does it stay there?

I did it as an experiment once by just running the hot water wide open. It started to steam after a minute or two. Furnace settings are where they should be. On days where hot water is more used it might be in the 120ish range.

On days when I've run cold only during the summer it takes forever to fill the 225 (I think the longest time was 2 hrs 25 min). A more normal fill is 1 hr 20-30 min.

 

[jjohnwm]

Holy crap! I used to think that one of the most interesting features of MFK was the chance to read about how aquariums are kept in far-flung exotic corners of the world. A couple of posts in the past by abominus and others have had me wondering exactly what world they lived on; surely those temperatures weren't occurring here on Earth!?!

cockroach is keeping his fishroom running strictly on cold water...that is still too hot to use half the time! Nope, not the Earth that I know, uh uh...How are the faucets labelled in your corner of the world? Hot and Hotter?

But now here's FINWIN experiencing these unbelievable conditions...practically next door to me, down in the tropical paradise of Washington, DC!

I know there are times in mid-February that I sometimes find myself pondering climate change; I'll be breaking the biggest chunks of ice off my beard and eyebrows after a combat session with Mother Nature and thinking "Climate change? Yes, please!" It never really occurs to me that the opposite extreme might be producing the same feelings in others.

Different strokes...

 

[abominus]

Holy crap! I used to think that one of the most interesting features of MFK was the chance to read about how aquariums are kept in far-flung exotic corners of the world. A couple of posts in the past by abominus and others have had me wondering exactly what world they lived on; surely those temperatures weren't occurring here on Earth!?!

cockroach is keeping his fishroom running strictly on cold water...that is still too hot to use half the time! Nope, not the Earth that I know, uh uh...How are the faucets labelled in your corner of the world? Hot and Hotter?

But now here's FINWIN experiencing these unbelievable conditions...practically next door to me, down in the tropical paradise of Washington, DC!

I know there are times in mid-February that I sometimes find myself pondering climate change; I'll be breaking the biggest chunks of ice off my beard and eyebrows after a combat session with Mother Nature and thinking "Climate change? Yes, please!" It never really occurs to me that the opposite extreme might be producing the same feelings in others.

Different strokes...

That makes the two of us. I am also fascinated by the diversity of wildlife ,weather, etc i find here on MFK due to the fact that there are members here from all over the entire world, well, almost the entire world.

I always considered you guys lucky, not having to endure such hot weather. However, after reading the plethora of 'cold-related' problems, a shiver runs down my spine. But yet again, after stepping into the scorching heat of 50 degree celsius, all those thoughts melt away.

My endless search for a member who is sharing the same suffering as i do has yielded no results. Hopefully i find one soon, so we can share our heartfelt pain to each other