YOU DON'T NEED TO CHANGE YOUR pH!

[RandalB]

Mat,
Your water is fine don't change anything.

BTW, Don't ever worry about posting questions. That's why we are all here. The only dumb question is the one no one asks.


RandalB

[Mat]

Thanks for your reply its nice to get a bit of reassurance, looking forward to seeing other comments ;D

[Shari]

Randal - you are excellent. Thanks.

I'm going to give it a shot over the next couple weeks.
May finally get rid of that slight fog from the phosphates too.!!

[RXTrev]

In regards to Smokey's reply, I was just wondering if you could lower the pH and make water softer with peat granules made for the fluval canister filters instead of using an RO unit. I have 2 55's one is fully planted and the other has angels in it, so I would like a lower pH, and lower hardness than my liquid rock tap water. I currently do water changes with aged tap water, but I was wondering if I could use the peat granules. Since I use a 55g garbage can for my aged water, I figure I could put the same amount of peat in all the tanks and garbage can, then after a few water changes, just use it in the garbage can to keep the new aged water's pH the same as the tanks' already lower pH. This should keep the pH constant, right ? Prove me wrong before I try it, please

[Mr. Limpet]

In my opinion, you can't really go wrong with using peat, if you don't make a dramatic change. I have used Queen sized leg stockings to hold peat in my storage barrels with good success. Peat pellets are really expensive compared to Home depot bought peat. You need to be careful to change the stockings out before the peat starts to rot, usually around a week +/- a day or so. you can use the old peat in your garden. Personally, I like the tea stain that the peaat leaves. Paul.

[Smokey]

Peat does have a short life. Putting peat pellets into a tank will have little effect, over-all.
MPE - ex:- 4 gallons of fresh Canadian Peat Moss will treat ~100-150 gallons of fresh water. MPE. The peat, in this case, drops the pH from 8.5 to 6.5, and the gh/kk from 450ppp down to ~40ppm and 12ppm repectfully.

This with a flow rate of 1 gallon per minute/60gallons/hr. The fresh water only flows through the ''peat'' once. After 100 gallons , I discard the peat..to the garden.

The time the water spends reacting with the peat determines the overall final effect.
The faster the flow rate the less the effect will be.

Since my tap water is alkiline and hard, the effect with others water may vary. TEST THE PEAT FILTERED WATER TO DETERMINE WHAT THE FINAL NUMBERS ARE.
And don't be afraid to experiment.

The peat filtered water is soft, slighty acid, and is a lovely tinge of brown. The discus love it!!!

P.S.- all peat filtered water is done outside of my tanks. I use a 5 gallon plastic bucket to hold the peat, have the fresh tap water enter from the bottom,. The water has to flow up through all the peat to exit. I found placing a 1'' foam on top prevents the peat from flowing out of the bucket. However, placing the peat in a loose fitting materal sock/sack/??? may do the same thing.

I then treat for chlorine/ammonia, aireate, match tank temperature and add to the tanks. Actually, I use warm water, 85 - 90F, and by the time the storage container (an old 45 gal. tank) is full, the peat filtered water is ready to use.
Been using this setup for over 6 months.. the peat filtered water is stable and consistant. which I like.
A bale of peat is about $5.00; cheap . Less expensive than replacing the carbon filters on the R/O uint.

Smokey

[Todd77357]

I agree in part with "YOU DON'T NEED TO CHANGE YOUR pH!", since most modern discus haven't lived in their natural environment in many generations they no longer have a set ph value. They have been forced to adapt to many different water conditions. However, wild caught fish need to be kept at natural levels of ph or breeding will be almost impossible. I have many discus, and I do adjust my ph using C02 and a controller, ph stabilitiy is key to healthy low stressed fish. I also raise my ph levels in fry grow out tanks to 7 since most fish stores and discus buyers won't keep their water values as I do.

[Smokey]

Very good point - Todd. And a very important point to remember.
We seem to go out of our way to give the best water/care for our discus. Then they are thrown into a tap water environment! STRESS.

Let your discus aclimitize to your water. And KEEP UP THE WATER CHANGES.

Smokey

[RandalB]

Todd,
You missed the point. I'm not talking about breeding discus here. I'm talking about raising and keeping them. Getting Discus to breed sucessfully is a whole other ballgame and is covered in the Breeding section. This thread is for the newbie who has been told by some well meaning but uninformed person that discus have to have pH 6.8 or below to live. I'm hoping to keep that hypothetical newbie from screwing around with all kinds of buffers and pH down products and stressing their fish to death.

Smokey,
Not sure what point you are trying to make about tap water stressing discus, please elaborate.

Regards,
RandalB

[Smokey]

I was agreeing with todd's post.
And yes, I am aware that the new discus owner, should raise the discus in water that is available to him/herself.

They are a number of options, available, to adjust a particulat waters numbers. If this is what a person wants to do, NOT every body has "good water" on hand.

Any discus kept in water with the numbers of , lets say .. pH6.8 and a softness of 40ppm; and then taken home and throw into water with a pH of 8.4/hardness of 400ppm .. can expect trouble.

Beaware of the water conditions from where the discus is kept. For the first few days, it may be necessay to baby sit the discus until it will be " happy" in its new home.
Hope I cleared up my suggestions.

Smokey

[Todd77357]

Randal, my point was the fact that hybrid discus can be kept at a wide range of water conditions. In my opinion keeping their water close to natural levels is best. Hybrid discus no longer have "ideal water conditions", so keep your fish at whatevery ph and ppm u wish. Just keep it stable. I believe wild caught discus must be kept in water at natural levels for them to truly have low stress. As far as breeding wilds, that was an example. People love to play God, lol.

[RandalB]

Todd,
Not to be quarrelsome, but I am keeping 2 adult wild caught Alancers and 1 juvenile RSG in my tap water right now, and they are not showing any signs of stress at all. As a matter of fact they are the terror of the 55 gallon QT tank. Stealing all the food, harassing the larger domestics, etc. It's been my experience that wilds tend to hold up better than their inbred domestic cousins. I've never had a wild fish get sick or display any signs of stress at all. My tap water is pH 7.8 gH 8, kH 6 at 178 PPM. Not solid rock but definately not amazon conditions. As far as getting them to breed, that I haven't even given a thought to yet. The RSG appears to be a female, and I'll start looking into breeding when she gets a little older. The alancers appear to be male and female and I'll be thinking about breeding them after QT is over.

No arguement from me about what best conditions for Wilds are, but they will also do just fine with harder water and plenty of W/C's.

RandalB

[Todd77357]

Randal

Humans have lived for thousands of years breathing around 2% oxygen. We could live breathing lets say 10% oxygen, but we would never truely adapt. The same goes for all of nature, the conditions all creatures have had for generations is always best. Who are we to tell nature it was wrong.

[RandalB]

Todd,
What are the conditions in the amazon that are good for all wilds? Are they always the same or do they fluctuate from season to season? Is the water always acidic and low in minerals? Or does the mineral content increase due to run off, etc? Who's to say what the proper conditions are for keeping wild discus? I am by no means an expert in wilds or raising them. I do have experience however. I do also know that conditions in the amazon are different in different areas and different seasons. The fish adapt to the seasonal conditions as they adapt to the water conditions in home tanks. This is something that nature built into them to help them survive in their natural environment where the water conditions can and do change seasonally.

The whole point of this thread is to put forward the information that Discus can and do adapt to most tapwater conditions found in most homes. There is no perfect pH reading or TDS reading for Discus. The way to keep healthy discus is to be consistant with your treatment of them. It's better to do frequent water changes at pH 8.0 than to toss in pounds of buffers or pH regulators and screw with complicated and inconsistent water chemistry in a vain attempt to match amazon river average conditions.

Wilds don't need 6.8 pH any more than domestics do to survive and thrive.

I appreciate and respect your opinion,
RandalB

[Carol_Roberts]

When I first started with discus all the books said the perfect water for discus had a pH of 6.0. I wanted perfect water for my discus.

Water comes out of my tap at pH 6.8. I'd lower it to 6.0 in a five gallon bucket with the pink acid powder and then pour my "perfect" water in the tank . . . . (I didn't know it at the the time, but overnight in the tank the pH would raise to 7.8 ). . . . .strangely my discus would all turn dark, hide in the corner and glower at me during water changes :P

Soon it dawned on me to check the pH of the tank water. pH 7.8 how could that be ??? So then I decided to add more acid to the 5 gallon bucket of change water. I was determined to have "perfect" water. I added 10 gallons 0f pH5 water to my 29 gallon tank, dropping the pH from 7.8 down to 6.8. Wow, I said to myself, tomorrow the water in this tank will be perfect.

My discus got very dark and looked very, very sick. And the next day the pH in the tank was right back up to 7.8

I stopped using the acid, learned to agitate my water to offgas CO2 which stabilizes the pH. Now I can do 90% water changes and my discus all have smiles on their faces. . . now I have "perfect" water for my discus. . . . GH 11, ph 7.8 well water.

Perfect water is consistant water.