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I was wondering if anyone could help me I have bred discus in the past with success but I was living in New York and had softer water. I recently moved to jersey and had new pairs form and there eggs keep going white on many different pairs. I tested my water today using api test strip my ph is around 6 my gh is 180. Is my general hardness a problem why the eggs will not fertilize. And if so what can I do besides an r/0 system to lower it.
Thank you
Christian
I'd appreciate if someone can give me some input on it
Is it well water?I can't see a municipal water supply under 7 due to corrosion of metals in pipes.It depends on the metallic minerals in the rocks in your area.Seems low in calcium carbonate,has no buffer and makes it less stable and easy for a ph crash and high in other minerals.
It's not well water. It's straight from the tap. Is 180 ppm too high for eggs to fertilize? Because I never had this problem before while breeding
In my experience multitest strips are not very reliable, far better (and cheaper in the long run) to get a tds meter and liquid tests (for KH and the other parameters). I would definitely make sure the measuraments were accurate before messing with the water. Ciao
You should aim for 80-90 ppm for a ballpark figure.
First you have to find out that you have a male and female.Quote:
new pairs form and there eggs keep going white
What I do about a couple of hours after they are done laying
eggs is put the eggs in a container of distilled water or pure RO water with a few drops of MB.
If they hatch you know you have a male and female.
Then you know you have a water problem in your breeding tank.
Rick Mileski SR
Definitely confirmed male and female. I actually have a pair of Rams that had a set of
Eggs yesterday and much easier to confirm sex so I will see how there eggs turn out. Is anything else to do besides r/o system to lower hardness?
I have the same problem, my TDS meter showing 160-170 ppm.
recently I have 3 pairs of Discus:
1. the 1st pair, the male eat all eggs after the female laying the eggs soon.
2. 2nd pair all eggs turn white (I still dont know wether the problem is the male not mature enough or the Hardness of water is the cause of it)
3. the other (younger pair) have some good condition of eggs and just pass day 2, going for day 3. so I am hoping for the eggs to hatch.
if these eggs hatches, then my water maybe won't be a problem for the next spawn. :)
But it will be helpful if someone can inform is there any way we can lowering down the Hardness of water with using R/O ?
Hi Christian,
I think the usual idea here is that the hard water causes some calcification of the eggs which prevents hatching, rather than not fertilizing. Rick's test would be a possible way to check this. I'm sorry but I don't know of another way to lower your hardness besides using RO. I wonder if some of the teas some folks use actually soften the water. I aim for 80 ppm or less.
Yes I assume the water is too hard because even the Rams eggs all turned white today. I have to look into setting up an r/o to store my water. Now when I do water changes do I do a mix of tap and r/o or just r/o say in a 20 gallon tank with pair of discus and my gh is 180pmm if I do 50% I assume just do straight r/o to bring the water down. And in my grow out tanks i know the hard water is fine but should I drop the young ones into those tanks when I have them or it's not a big deal like jumping ph levels when you jump gh for the fish that is. Thank you
I do fairly large water changes when I do them, so I use a mix, mostly RO, but still some fresh hard water to add kh, which gets consumed during the nitrification process and acts as a pH buffer. Once the fry have attached, I do try to do daily 50% changes and just start adding back in the straight tap. The pH stays about the same.
Personally I think that the idealTDS should be in the region of 60 - not lower