Perfect Water PH level and GH???

[sacgalle]

I live in Brisbane Australia and I am using aged tap water. That tap water PH is 7.6 - 7.8 and GH is 180. When I am buying my fish my LPS told me use some buffer to reduce ph into 6.5 and also that buffer will reduce my water GH. Also they advice me when I am doing water change it must be same water condition (PH, Gh, Temperature) as tank. So I am put a heater into buckets and heat them into 86f and using that buffer adjest water PH between 6.5 and 7. Now I am sick of it. When I am reading those blogs they say PH 7 ,7.4 , 7.5 etc. When I am reading about discus every article say PH should be 6.5 to 7.0.
Please tell can I use water without buffering? how am I reduce GH?

My tanks are 60G and 10G. Daily 10 to 20% WC.
Nh4 - 0.0 to 0.25
nitrite 0
nitrate .3
no plants.
2" gravel.

[jimg]

Your ph is fine. to lower gh if you want you need reverse osmosis filters
Only should age your water if ph swings like from 7.5 to 8.0+ overnight
lower ph gh is better for wild discus.

[ericatdallas]

Is it better to try to match ALL the water parameters? Probably... unless it came from a poor quality source.

But I think most people will agree on here that stable conditions beats EXACT parameters every time. Especially if you're not sure how to control parameters (I'm going to assume that's the case based on your question).

If you mess with the water parameters, be prepared to stress you fish out.

Since you're not breeding (I can't see that's your goal yet), just acclimate your fish to your water.

Btw, those 'buffers' you add are essentially adding dissolved solids (higher TDS).