screamin ph levels

[engineguy129]

Hello everyone,
I am in the process of planning a 150 gal discus tank. I think I have about everything squared away. But one thing that I am asking help on is my tap water is around 7.8 ph 5 kh and 6 gh. Is there a way of acheiving lower ph levels without all the chemicals?? I have seem "prime" and most of the other buffers. One more thing I think I should add is that I have not kept discus yet mainly gouramies, hatchets and loaches (my 60 gal tank) and the 150 gal is for the discus with a few german blue rams and cory's it will be a planted setup and some of the buffers I have seen skyrocket phosphorus...........hence algae. Any ideas will surely help I am still in the planning/research stage............what is everyone else doing to maintain their ph??? Thank you in advance...........Rob

[Carol_Roberts]

Mostly we leave our pH levels alone. Mine's 7.8 after aging. So is Brewmaster Al's and many others who post here. Stability is more important than a "magic" pH number.
Carol

[RandalB]

Rob, there are lots of things you can do to lower your Ph. Peat filtering, R/O water mixing, Acids, Buffers,Etc,Etc,Etc to the point of nausea. Carol is exactly right your fish will be fine in your water. My Tap water (Chicago) is almost identical to yours (Ph 7.8 Gh 6 Kh8) and I keep babies,juveniles and adults in it with no problem.

When I started out with a community tank a couple of years ago, I adjusted Ph whenever I did W/C because an idiot at the LFS told me I HAD to have Ph of 7.0 for a community tank. So what I got was a few hours after every water change fish would die from Ph shock as the Ph Dropped and then went back up. Leave it well enough alone until you get a breeding pair then worry about TDS and Ph to get better spawn results.

IMHO the key to sucessful raising is consistency, clean water/tanks and quality food. Provide those and you don't need all kinds of chemicals and doodads to keep discus.

Hope this helps,
RandalB

If you still have Ph Q's fire 'em off. I can help in the R/O area at the very least.