What does everyone put in their water?

[pissydiscus]

So here is what I have, Water out of the tap is around 7.8-8.0. I haven't left some out over night to test but I'm going to tonight. I use this filter - http://www.petco.com/product_info.asp?familyid=2856&sku=1716301175&tab= 3&dept_id=1059&c1=1051&c2=1059&c3=&ct1=Filters&ct2 =Tap+Water+Purifiers&ct3=
I change the water daily, 25% every other day and 50% every other day always sucking the gravel. The filter comes with this electrolyte additive to bring the PH down in the 5 gallon bucket before putting it in. For a 5 gallon bucket it's supposed to bring it down to 6.8 which it doesn't. Doesn't matter because a steady PH is better than a non steady PH. My real question is what is everyone putting into their water? I'm running out of this electrolyte bottle and no one local has it. Should I be using a buffer to my bucket when I'm changing the water? Anyone use the NovaAqua stuff? I'm looking for suggestions because once this bottle runs out I'm not sure how great this filter is going to work and I don't want to just run water out of the tap into the tank.

All i like to put in my water is fish. ;)
HTH, Matt

[Aquarius]

Really though, I like to put DISCUS in my water...

Right from the well, into the tank :)

[pissydiscus]

cute :D

but seriously ...

[Aquarius]

Well, my PH out of the Well is 8.2 and is fairly hard. Never add anything. Once in a great while I'll had Stree Coat, but thats it. I have had no problems and never need to change the water, as the fish breed and eggs hatch, so the point would be nothing,. To many varibles to mess up.
Let mother nature take care of it.You don;t say if your in a city, cause if you are you'd either need to age the water or add something like startright

In all seriousness, anything added is a bad thing IMO with the exception of peat.( not a chemical)
By adding chemicals you run the risk of swings and spikes and at the very least unstable water. There is no way to be exact when you add things taking into account the amount of water we change in the short periods of time we do it in, so go with whats quickest to reproduce on a large scale, tapwater.
If you have chlorimines or chlorine, a remover of some sort may be nessasary, but that would be it IMO.
HTH, Matt

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Timiddiscus, remember that ANY chemical(=adding ions) you add to water will drive up the conductance of that water. The guys here have given you good advice, IMO. What is the specs of your water? Where do you reside?


Steve

[Jeff]

I agree. I age, heat, and airate the water for 24 hours. Then right into the tank.

[Carol_Roberts]

I can aerate and heat my pH 7.8, GH 11, 276 ppm well water in three hours and then straight into the tank ;D

I don't need any dechlor products because I don't have any chlorine in my well water.

[fcdiscus]

I am with the rest here Timid, and especially Stev- Aquarius. I do however add Discus Essential to my RO/tap water mix for the breeders. Not another thing at all. Frank

[zzbruinzz]

24 hr period, heat to 85c w/ aeration. no additives, unless you have cloramines, then add a conditioner.

[flogger426]

unless you are aging your tap water for 36 hrs or more, take it from me - be safe and always add a dechlorinator

Age it and heat it....same for breeders....
And i run a drip through sediment and carbon filters...

[jim_shedden]

I age it and heat it....but my water is soooooo soft I add 2 reaspoons of espom salts to kick it up..............it has worked very well and the fish don't get constipated.

[JeffreyRichard]

There is some good info here ... I've done a lot of work with Tapwater to ensure continuity of my hatchery. You'd be VERY surprised what is in municiple tap water ...

Which is Point 1. If you where to take sample of water from 10 different people (unless they were neighbors) you'd have 10 different water conditions. So, there isn't a "one-size-fits-all" answer here. But that's not really helping you. So ...

General Rule #1 ... never change the pH of your tap water unless it is SO BAD that Discus can't live in it. Matt said it best about the potential of pH swings and the stress it can cause ... I used to use PH Down on my community tank to get a neutral pH, until one day after a water change all the fish in the tank came down with ich ... stress from the pH dropping below 5 in a pH crash. My tap water comes out at 9.5 ... I have raise hundreds of discus in this water. Granted, the pH is generally 7.5 to 8 in my tanks, but still ...

General Rule #2... hardness is much more important than pH. My water is about 120 ppm, fairly soft. That is why I don't worry about pH.

General Rule #3 ... IF you have alter the chemistry of you water, you should reconstruct it (RO or DI) rather than use chemicals ... safer and most cost effiecent over the longrun. EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE ... try peat before you invest in RO. Sometimes filtering your tap water through peat will make the water good enough.

General Rule #4 ... If possible, filter your tap water through carbon or polyfilter. This will remove a lot of harmful gunk, but will not affect the chemistry. However, this is generally more beneficial than trying to alter the chemistry. EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE ... if you use RO than you don't have to worry about the gunk because you've stripped it all (mostly) out.

Hope this helps ...

Jeff

[Very Fishy]

In preparing my aquarium for Discus, I first thought I had to have the water just right(pH). My tap water is 7.8 and I wanted to get it down to 6.5. I started by adding pH down. But the water was well buffered and the pH would bounce right back up the next day. I then tried SeaChem Acid Buffer and it worked a little better but the pH was still inching back up over a few days. After reading and researching, I learned that this would cause more stress on the fish than if I just left it alone.

[Carol_Roberts]

All the old books talk about lowering pH. Very Fishy is right. Now we know keeping the pH stable is much more important.

[Surfghost63]

Hi guys.

Nice thread timid :thumbsup:

I have Ph 7.5, Gh 6 and Kh 3, out of the tap, I only age (a Hagen powerhead with a quick filter with fiber and charcoal eliminates the junk), aereate and match the temp of the main tank.

I was wasting my money by adding Sera Aqutan to "conditioning" the water, and tried peat for some time, the Ph only went to 7.0, so I quit using it, not worth the expense / chore.

Thanks to this excellent board, now I only put one ingredient , TLC to my tap water ;)

Cheers,

Bill :guitarist:

[pissydiscus]

All I have to say is great thanks to this board. According to everything that has been said here it appears that I'm going to start aging my tap water with 2 buckets of heated water and aerating it for at least 24 hours. Then putting it in the tank after a WC. I'll only add in some ammo lock 2 from aquarium pharm to get out the chlorine. I live in the city so ....


I really appreciate all this information, those filters were costing me 20 bucks every 2 weeks with my WC schedule. Hurts the pocket book you know?

[Surfghost63]

Hi again timid.

The aging and aereating of the water will be enough to eliminate chlorine, please don't waste your money, it's not worth, you may want to spend it in buying some discus perhaps ? LOL

Good Luck,

Bill :guitarist: