RO Water, Mandatory or Optional?

[sjwong]

Hey,

Recently, I've been getting interested in keeping Discus fish, despite hearing how difficult they are to keep. However after some research and watching videos on Discus I begin to realize that its not as tedious to keep discus as people say. However, I'm wondering if RO (Reverse Osmosis) water is mandatory to keep domestic Discus. I have read online that some people use and do no use RO Water. I'm just skeptical and not sure about installing a RO Water System if I do plan to. But nonetheless, the title says it,
is RO Water mandatory for keeping domestic Discus? If not, are there any alternative ways of preparing the water?

Thanks.

[SNap0283]

RO water is almost always unnecessary to keep discus. There are a few exceptions if the water where you live has something that might harm the fish but living in a city in North America that is probably not going to be the case for you. All they really require is a lot of clean water, daily very large water changes are mandatory.

[Jack L]

only reason i know is if you have crappy tap water, e.g. a LOT of nitrate out of the tap

i used RO for a while because i didn't like the limescale from my hard tap water, but i got tired of paying to remove minerals AND then paying to add them back, so now i do a 50/50 ro/tap mix and that has been enough to keep the limescale at bay

[discuspaul]

RO water for discus is very much a limited option need.

Check the composition of your water with the local authority.

The presence of chlorines and chloramines can be effectively mitigated with Prime conditioner, and so long as your water's pH is somewhere between 6.0 and 8.0, and can be reasonably well stabilized between tap & tank, even if ageing is needed, and nitrates are minimal or non-existent, then just remove RO water from your thinking.

[Filip]

IMO as long as the water is drinkable it should be good for discus. I keep mine In very hard Gh,Kh tap water with no problems.
They got "hardest to keep"fish reputation more because they require big tanks and frequent large water-changes.

[jim LI]

I use water out of the tap for my w/c. i use prime as a conditioner. 60% water changes every 2 days. I have a 72 gallon display tank with 7 adults.

jim