the best way to make your water Soft....

[EIHAB83]

Hi guys...
in case the water in my tank is hard and I wanted to make it soft ... what is the best and easiest way to make it soft ... I read in Simply you can soft the water by using peat how can this be done...
can u plz tell me the methods and how can it be done
my best wishes ;)
EIHAB

[bloom]

Smokey has some posts on the method he uses to soften water and lower ph using peat. Basically filtering tap water throught peat before adding it to his tank during water changes. I forget exactly where the post is, but it might turn up pretty easily doing a search with his name and peat. It seems like not a small amount of work though.

I tried using peat in my canister filter once, and I don't think that's a good idea. I think it starts to rot after a while and seems like it can put little particles into the water. Also, some people can use peat and are able to keep ph stable, but it seems that might not always be easy to do.

Also, and this isn't really what you were asking, but if you post what your water hardness is (gh and I guess kh) other people here can tell you whether you even need to adjust your water. From what I've read, if you're growing discus they can do well in fairly hard water, but softer water can help with breeding (although it seems a lot of people have lots of success breeding in hard water also). The reason I'm mentioning all this is because it seems really important to 1) do a lot of water changes to keep the water clean, and 2) keep ph and hardness stable--and the water changes and keeping water conditions stable seem a a lot easier without doing things to alter your tap water.

If your water conditions really aren't suitable for keeping discus, I'm sure people here can recommend solutions. I know some people use reverse osmosis units if their tap water is awful.

steve

[EIHAB83]

Thank you Steve for the infos. it's good to read them they are useful
all the best :)