Distilled water safe to soften water?

[discusfish]

I have heard using distilled water and mixing it with your tank water during water changes can help lower the hardness of the water. I am at about 6 degrees right now. I would like to bring it to the range of 0-3 degrees. Am I doing this the right way? Discus buffer? I am using the water softener pillow right now.

Thanks

[dm]

Yes, distilled water will lower the hardness of the water. You have to be careful though. Some of that is needed by the fish and if you go too low you could crash your pH and cause seroius problems. I am curious as to why you want to lower your hardness. Are you having problems lowering pH? Most people use RO water instead of distilled and cut it with regular tap water to keep some of the buffering in it and avoid the pH swing.

[RandalB]

I agree with DM,
Just for info, what are the parameters of your water and why is 0-3 so critical?

Distilled water is also probably a pretty costly addition to your water if you are purchasing. $.50 a gallon at the grocery for the cheapo around here.

Discus buffer only works on KH not Gh. It actually increases the dissolved solids in the water.

Water softener pillows do work but take time to operate and have to be recharged and are expensive initial purchase items. In a scenario like mine where I change 75-150% of my water daily (2-3 w/c's), they would not have the time to soften water appreciably before I changed water. Same deal with peat filtering.

I just use straight tap for my Juvies and babies and R/O and tap for my pair.

Hope this helps,
RandalB

[discusfish]

Thanks for the info guys. Well, I don't have big problems as of yet. Currently my water is at 6 degrees, PH at 6.8 Is that safe for discus? I have been reading some books about discus and they said the "ideal" water should be pretty soft- 0-3 degrees. I had discus in the past but it's been about 4 years since I last had them, so I am like a newbie again and I am a lot more involved now. Can you guys explain what R O water is? Where to I get it from. Seems like R O water is the way to go ;)

Thanks for your response

[Keystonediscus]

Hey Chris welcome to simply sounds like your water is pretty good on the hardness scale for keeping discus. you really only need to go 0-3 ppm for breeding discus. your ph is fine. if you really want to go the expense of RO it owuld bee a good investment if you want to breed your fish. RO water is water produced though a process of passing water through a series of prefilters a carbon filter and then through a thin film membrane to purify the water. The membrane removes the minerals in the water making it soft. it will give you water that is 95-99% pure you can also then filter it through a deionizer a further purify it giving you water that is almost 99.9% pure. through the process you yeild 4-1 ratio waste to product water. the problem with RO water is that by itself it can not support life since all the minerals and electrolites have been removed so you will need to either ad tap back to it or regenerate with kents electro right or buy adding 3 grams calcium sulfate, 1 gram magnesium sulfate, and 1 gram calcium chloride per 20 gals I use the formula i just gave you. it will give you water that is very similar to the mineral content found in native discus waters. by regenerating RO water you will rebuffer the water just enough to hold a constant acidic ph between 5.0 and 6.5 Email Randall and ask him about RO he's got access to equiptment and parts for some great prices. he can even build you a system to meet your water needs. If you need help locating calcuium sulfate let me know I have a source for it for fairly cheap.


Brian Bender
Keystone Discus
www.keystonediscus.com

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Hey Chris, I just did a conductance test on some distilled water from my local grocery store(I use it to clean elec. equip and add to my radiator). The conductance came out to ZERO, which means there is NOTHING in it, but H2O. This will "cut" any water containing minerals a percentage, depending on what ratios are used. Example: lets say you use 50% tap, conducting at 200uS(uS=microseimens) and 50% distilled, conducting at 0. This would mean you have 200 + 0=200/2=100uS. You would have cut the mineral content in half by using a half and half mix. My R/O produces water that conducts at 20uS. Your water sounds great for Discus with no "cutting" necessary, IMO.

Steve

[Francisco_Borrero]

I just wish I had the tap water you have.....

Cheers, Francisco.

[discusfish]

Thanks for the great advise Brian and Steve and everyone else....With help like that I can get into the swing once again pretty quick. Thanks again.

Hey quick question. One of my Discus is darker... Now I know they change colors, but I thought the lighter they are the more comfortable they feel. Could it just be the adjustment to the new tank water?

Thanks

[RandalB]

Man! It's great that we have so many people that have the right answers! I might have to ask for another topic to help moderate! Good responses from Brian and Steve. Right on the money.

Definately beat me to it.

So many posts, so little time.

RandalB

[Ivan]

Just to add to what Randall said about water softner pillows. Aswell as being expensive to operate, they work on ion exchange. Basically the things swap calcium ions (and others) for sodium ions. What do you recharge it with? Sodium chloride! fish don't like high levels of sodium, Discus or goldfishIMO. Get rid of yer softner, get a storage bucket, chuck a heater in it and an internal filter with a bit of activated carbon inside. works for me!