Originally Posted by
SMB2
Don't mess with success. If it is working for you guys then I wouldn't change a thing.
But if you spend any time on SD you will see, especially in the the disease section, that one of the first treatment meds is lots of aged water. Secondly unless you have specific breeding needs for a PH level, most of the wise guys recommend "don't chase the PH" (Even the sponsors that sell RO units!). So WC with a stable PH seems key. Lots of folks have stable tap/well PH so their WCs may be easier. Here in the DC area I have seen Ph levels of 7.1 and 6.6 out of the same tap and it always rises with ageing. Also in an established tank I think PH is probably the one test that will give you the health of your tank. That is why I think a PH meter is a reasonable investment. That and I am not so good at color matching! (The other API tests are easy because they basically should be 0, with the exception of nitrates.)
So, I age my water. My tank is always 7.6/7.7 and the aged water will rise to that. My only question was could I speed up the process so I would't have barrels sitting all over the place. The answer seems to be that shorter periods of ageing can be carried out with more vigorous agitation. (It works fastest with an OPEN barrel to allow for gas exchange.)
Wasn't trying to convince anybody to age their water, but lots of discus keepers do, and are space/time challenged so maybe this will help.