RO Water to Tap Water Acclimatize

[JayKayN]

Hi All,
Greetings. am new here and also into the world of discus, lives in UK and need valuable advise on the following.

Tank Setup: Have set up my first 100 gallon tank before reading up in the forum before around 4 months now. The tank is having sand bottom with a few drift woods and rocks with Amazon sword and Anubias as plants. Its running a FX6 filter with an aquasky LED light and using DD temperature control unit running two 300W heaters set at 29.5degrees as steady temperature. Initially the temperature was set at 27 then slowly brought up to get the plants and the other fishes used to it. Tank is cycled well initially with the ghost feeding and the second cycle with fish in by slowly increasing the bioload with 5 corydoras and 15 rummynose tetras and the water parameters are staying steady with ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 0( doing weekly water change of 30%) with a water pH recorded at 6.6. Adds Seachem prime and stability to the total tank volume with every water change. Syphoning of the sand also after every feed and weekly as part of water change.

my LFS is not having discus in stock, as per their advise went to see the fishes in a shop in the neighbouring county and they have the Vietnamese discus in red and blue colours however they are saying they are brought up in the RO water and i need to change the tank set up to RO water or buy RO water from them which is not feasible due to the weekly travel to get the water from them every week with 150 miles round trip.

Question
1. RO water as i understood is preferrably for the wild discus and not required for these mixed breeds?
2. If that is the case can these fish be acclimatized back to be in the tap water with water conditioners?
3. If so what is the advised method to achieve this. Am not having a QT at this moment.


Thanks & regards
Jay

[brewmaster15]

Jay welcome to SimplyDiscus! It sounds like your tank had been well set up and thought out. I look forward to seeing it!

I do not know why anyone would keep domestic discus in Ro water unless they were breeding pairs or their water was atrocious. Even so they would want to add minerals and trace elements back in fir good growth. Often when people use Ro water they use it with a mix of some tap water. That shop probably is doing that.

Discus can easily go from Ro Water to tap water. Your pH, though not critical with domestics, is fairly low and probably similar to the shops. I would contact the shop and inquire exactly what the parameters are. Honestly I have a hard time believing a retail discus shop in the UK is using RO for Domestics if they intend to sell locally.

I routinely move my domestic pairs from my tap water to RO when breeding... I don't "acclimate" them.

I would suggest though that you look at other shops in the area if you can. For me the thought of a shop offering to sell me RO water when they know how much water that would be for good maintenance illustrates to me what matters to them.

Al

[JayKayN]

Jay welcome to SimplyDiscus! It sounds like your tank had been well set up and thought out. I look forward to seeing it!

I do not know why anyone would keep domestic discus in Ro water unless they were breeding pairs or their water was atrocious. Even so they would want to add minerals and trace elements back in fir good growth. Often when people use Ro water they use it with a mix of some tap water. That shop probably is doing that.

Discus can easily go from Ro Water to tap water. Your pH, though not critical with domestics, is fairly low and probably similar to the shops. I would contact the shop and inquire exactly what the parameters are. Honestly I have a hard time believing a retail discus shop in the UK is using RO for Domestics if they intend to sell locally.

I routinely move my domestic pairs from my tap water to RO when breeding... I don't "acclimate" them.

I would suggest though that you look at other shops in the area if you can. For me the thought of a shop offering to sell me RO water when they know how much water that would be for good maintenance illustrates to me what matters to them.

Al

Thank you Al for the quick reply. Yes the same is the thought with me. 30 gallon per week i will definitely go with a RO filter. Have been to another shop too but they dont have the stock. I chose to go there personally and buy the fish by seeing them myself. This is how the tank looks like
WhatsApp Image 2024-02-25 at 13.21.33.jpg
WhatsApp Image 2024-02-25 at 13.21.33 (1).jpeg

Was thinking of going all blue colours for this tank
WhatsApp Image 2024-02-24 at 16.51.34.jpg

Am going to speak to them today about the required water parameters over the phone and see what they say.
Else can we do with the phased water change with the ratio of tap water increased across

Thanks & regards
Jay

[jeep]

Welcome to SimplyDiscus!! I agree with Al that it's odd to have pet store discus being kept in RO water. As far as transitioning discus from RO to tap water, or the reverse, I've never had an acclimation period. I only use RO on breeders and when I'm ready i just do a large water change to lower the TDS to a specific value. After fry have hatched I'll do the reverse so the fry are raised in tap water that contains all the valuable mineral content.

Are these actual photo's of the discus you're thinking about?

[JayKayN]

Thank you for the reply. The first picture if of my tank and the second one is the discus which is there in the fish shop for sale....and took the picture when i was there yesterday

[brewmaster15]

Tank looks great Jay! A suggestion is to be sure food and waste doesnt accumulate inbetween those rocks and center plantings.

Al

[JayKayN]

Thank you Al, am going to fill in those with white sand which i have as spare and brush it in the next water change.

[JayKayN]

Thank you Al

Thank you Jeep

Went last monday and got 6 discus( Two red melon, 1 Red leopard Panthera, 1 checkerboard Pigeon and two Blue Turquoise) all of them in the size of 3.5"-4" from the same shop above and got them into the QT of 100L which had 70% RO and 30% tap water and in the past 5 days reversed the % and as you all mentioned they were fiine without any issue from the first time when i got them and they are now enjoying their shifting into the new home. A few pictures of how they look.WhatsApp Image 2024-03-03 at 18.45.04.jpgWhatsApp Image 2024-03-03 at 18.56.18.jpg

[brewmaster15]

Looking very nice there Jay! Congratulations on your new Discus!

Welcome officially to the best fish you keep! Discus!

[JayKayN]

Thank you Al

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Jay and welcome to Simply and discus keeping. Fish and tank look great
Pat

[JayKayN]

Thank you Pat