Water issues?

[Hopeful]

My dad & I live 45 mins apart from each other, I am on well water & dad is on community water, What we have in comon is we bought our discus fish from the same breeder & we have in home water softeners that use a potassium base salt.We have the same proble our discus r ok for a short time in softener water then start to quiver & flash go off thier feed. All dads discus died within the year. I have 3 left they r now 3 inches, 2 r pairing up she layed eggs, he ate them last night. they r still irritated & not happy. I have tried different medications think gill flukes or somethingthey would get better go back on thier feed then it would repeat,Tried BB, 50% R/O & 50% raw well water with no permanent change,Moved them to Qt and striped & bleached main tank, cycled it with softener water & did the same to dads. we restalked from a local discus keeper. They went in beautifuly & we eating within 15 mins.OMG i was happy. 3 weeks went by& bam it started all over again & to the day dads did the same. None have died but the symptoms r the same. they have not been near the old ones. Here r my water specs.-Raw Well Water- GH 7, KH 10, PH 7.8, TDS 188, iron 1 ppm. possible sulphur or magnisieium smell in cold water.
-Softener Water this is what they r in. GH0, KH 10, PH 7.8 TDS 244, iron 0, still has odour at times on cold side.
-Tank 50 gal 7 2-3in discus 50% w/c every 2 days
ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5-10 at most, PH 8.0
Dads water specs ir slightly higer than mine. we do not have a r/o unit.
I have raised angelfish & other softwater fish inmy water for 10yrs no problem. this is specific to discus i think. we hope we can keep discus they r a beautiful investment.
any help would be greatly appreciated

[discuspaul]

Sorry Hopeful, can't help you here.
It's a mystery to me - I can't even begin to give a possible explanation or diagnosis from the info at hand, and based on your fishs' behavior. This is one for the experts - could be any number of things - your Dad's fish took a year before all died - first time around - that says something -- many negative things can occur during that period of time.
Where are you located ? Is there any possibility your well water & your Dad's municipal water could be from the same originating source ?
On the other hand - it may not have anything to do with the water at all.
Regrets - this is not my area of expertise.
Paul

[Hopeful]

Hey Paul thanxs for looking. My dads fish died 1x1 over a period of a year just like mine but I still have 3 originals left. I have a private well and dad is on not city but comunity water. We live in Prince George BC. I have to do a water change today & i am going to try my raw well water as sugested by eddie. Im just very worried because of the unknown metals that might be in there. Im afraid to make things worse but i have to try. Thanxs again.

[Hopeful]

can someone tell me if my iron level 1ppm is ok for discus? I have been looking about and cant find a answer.

[pcsb23]

1 ppm of iron is too high. It is toxic whether chelated or not.

Having read through your description of your water (and your dads) I would suggest investing in a decent RO machine and use remineralising salts and not filtered well/tap water. Don't get too hung up on pH as such or on tds etc for now. The smells you describe cannot be good and the sulphur one could potentially be dangerous.

Without getting a full analysis done the above is the best I can offer.

[flyman767]

If at anytime you smell anything in the water, you run the risk of death and destruction relative to your fish? If you would not drink the water.. than discus certainly should not be living in it. I agree with Paul..if you want to keep discus you need to invest in a R/O and remineralize your water(critical step).

[Hopeful]

I agree a r/o unit is the best, it takes time to save the $. The only reason I havent paid attention to our water is I have raised Angelfish and other softwater fish in it for 10yrs no problems. I didnt think the discus would have such problems(wrong) and didnt prepare for a r/o unit. My dad wanted company in this discus adventure, it was something we both are interested in and could do together. I unfortanatly dont have $ to buy a unit and was hopeing there was another way. I changed 20 gals with bypassig the softener on the cold side and the fish seem (at this time) ok with it. If it dosent work I will have to buy r/o water.

[Eddie]

I agree a r/o unit is the best, it takes time to save the $. The only reason I havent paid attention to our water is I have raised Angelfish and other softwater fish in it for 10yrs no problems. I didnt think the discus would have such problems(wrong) and didnt prepare for a r/o unit. My dad wanted company in this discus adventure, it was something we both are interested in and could do together. I unfortanatly dont have $ to buy a unit and was hopeing there was another way. I changed 20 gals with bypassig the softener on the cold side and the fish seem (at this time) ok with it. If it dosent work I will have to buy r/o water.

I wonder if you can get away with running a powerfilter on your storage water container to remove the odors and add this product for the time being. I actually have 2 each 16 oz bottles of this stuff and I can send them to you for free. Let me know

http://www.novalek.com/kordon/rid_metals/index.htm

[Hopeful]

oh my that would be wonderful I have found what i hope to be a used food grade 45gal barrel that i can use for a storage tank. i will pm you with my address. I havent seen that product anywhere here and it would help alot. I just picked up bottled water to do a 50-50 atleast this should be better than what they r in. Thanxs soooo much.

[Eddie]

oh my that would be wonderful I have found what i hope to be a used food grade 45gal barrel that i can use for a storage tank. i will pm you with my address. I havent seen that product anywhere here and it would help alot. I just picked up bottled water to do a 50-50 atleast this should be better than what they r in. Thanxs soooo much.

We'll get you sorted, stuff will be sent off tomorrow. I have some thing to send off to another member so it won't be a problem.

[Hopeful]

[pcsb23]

bypassing the water softener makes sense, no point adding even more salts to the mix! Good luck with the stuff from Eddie.

[waj8]

The only purpose of your water softener is to remove iron. The softening salt is just exchanging the Magnesium and Calcium ions for Potassium. Since you don't really have hard water, I don't see the need for this. I believe there are filters that will remove just the iron and manganese as well as the Sulpher smell.

[Hopeful]

Thank u Paul for your wishes. I did bypass the softener and am curently useing a 50x50 mix R/O and raw wellwater. I hope the metals will be diluted enough. What did happen tonight after heating( boiled ro and added to well water) this mix is the tank went instantly milky looking when added, i only changed about 15-20 gals.

[Hopeful]

Hi waj8,
you dont think my water is hard? If it is acceptable that would be great. I know that there are in line filters i could use to remove the iron also iron removing units. The problem is lack of space to put it all. I live in a mobile home. Im hoping that if i dilute the wellwater with ro it will even things out. I just dont know about the smell. I wonder if i let the water age if that would rid the sulfer/magnessium(just guessing thats what the smell is)