New discus tank & struggles

Hello All,
My name is Pedro and I am glad I found this forum!!!

I used to have a discus tank back 12 years ago when I used to live in my home country (Brazil). It has been 7 years that I moved to the US and finally I am able to come back to my passion which is discus. However It has been a struggle. Where I live (White Lake, Michigan) we use water softener and the ph of the water is 7.8.
I have planted substrate with white sand in the tank, and I had two big driftwoods which I removed because it was tanning the water badly. I will add new smaller driftwoods so that I can boil them before throwing them in the tank.
My real struggle has been with the ph...it is coming out of the tank as 8.8! I have an UV filter system (a professional one) and good filtration but for some reason there's an alkaline buffer in my tank, not sure if it is the sand (bought as it was supposed to be ph neutral).
Is it the only way to solve this by buying a RO/DI unit?
Or is there another way?

I don't depend on chemicals forever, therefore I want to find a way, tried peat however it will have tannis as well and have been trying to find almond leaves too but not been able.

Attached you will see the images without the driftwood, the water is pretty brown still, I've done a 50% water change yesterday and planning in doing another one on Monday 1/2/2017 too.

Any help is much appreciated as it seems that I am struggling quite a bit with the water chemistry (in Brazil my struggle was the opposite, water was too acid but I did found a water there to balance it out).Attachment 105404Attachment 105405y

Hi Pedro, welcome to the forum!! I think you should first rule out the sand as the ph culprit. See if you can get some distilled water at the store which should have a ph of 7.0 (check first and make a note of the ph when you bought it.) perhaps buy a gallon of distilled water (roughly $1) and pour half out, then add a couple handfuls of sand and put the top back on. let it sit a day and check the ph, if its higher then your sand is the culprit.

if the sand is not the culprit and your water is settling at 8.8 after aging, then an RO unit may be your best bet.

Do you age your water? If not, I would age for 24 hrs and then check the pH again. pH 7.8-->8.8 would suggest CO2 being gassed off

I think it's very unlikely that your pH is actually 8.8. Suggest you take a small sample to your local fish store and ask them to check. They have fresh chemicals and they'll advise what the water parameter should be in your area.

Willie

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Originally Posted by jmf3460

Hi Pedro, welcome to the forum!! I think you should first rule out the sand as the ph culprit. See if you can get some distilled water at the store which should have a ph of 7.0 (check first and make a note of the ph when you bought it.) perhaps buy a gallon of distilled water (roughly $1) and pour half out, then add a couple handfuls of sand and put the top back on. let it sit a day and check the ph, if its higher then your sand is the culprit.

if the sand is not the culprit and your water is settling at 8.8 after aging, then an RO unit may be your best bet.

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Thank you for your reply and i'll definitely do this. Before adding the sand I checked exactly like you said and the ph came out the same as it was before but i'll double check again.

Kind regards,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PAR23

Do you age your water? If not, I would age for 24 hrs and then check the pH again. pH 7.8-->8.8 would suggest CO2 being gassed off

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Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I'll start paying more attention to the aging of the water as well and yes you could be right. I had way to much sand in the aqua and after some research I removed roughly half of it. I guess if I did right, then aging the water this "alkaline buffer" might end at some point.

Thanks for your reply!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Willie

I think it's very unlikely that your pH is actually 8.8. Suggest you take a small sample to your local fish store and ask them to check. They have fresh chemicals and they'll advise what the water parameter should be in your area.

Willie

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Water in my area (tap water) is 7.5, however after being in the tank for some time it goes up to 8.8.
Appreciate your comments and I will take samples of both, tap water and tank water to my local fish store and see what they show.

Thanks!

The culprit is probably carbonate in your tap water. Your softener is not removing it, it just swaps 2 sodium ions for each magnesium or calcium so the carbonate is still buffering your water. I'm not sure of the effect of the sodium traces on discus, but in the long run it might not be the best thing if you have too much in your water. You're best trying to by-pass the softener and use strait tap. Unless you're going to get wilds, tap should be just fine.

Another option is to hook up a DI unit to a faucet that has "soft" water coming to it...you'll see much longer filter/membrane life. If you go the RO route, you'll have to reconstitute though which gets pricey. You can also do a combination of both and mix half RO with half tap (unsoftened)

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Originally Posted by TexMoHoosier

The culprit is probably carbonate in your tap water. Your softener is not removing it, it just swaps 2 sodium ions for each magnesium or calcium so the carbonate is still buffering your water. I'm not sure of the effect of the sodium traces on discus, but in the long run it might not be the best thing if you have too much in your water. You're best trying to by-pass the softener and use strait tap. Unless you're going to get wilds, tap should be just fine.

Another option is to hook up a DI unit to a faucet that has "soft" water coming to it...you'll see much longer filter/membrane life. If you go the RO route, you'll have to reconstitute though which gets pricey. You can also do a combination of both and mix half RO with half tap (unsoftened)

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Thanks for your feedback!
I think the only one that bypass the water softener is water from the backyard, but then it will only be possible to use during spring/summer when the weather permits.
I could connect the RO/DI unit before it goes to the water softener however that seems like a lot of work and not sure if I can do it myself.
If I connect to a regular faucet that has water flowing from the water softener you are saying that the filter/membrane life will be much less than soft water? Like how less? Maybe change them every 6 months?