Trace Elements

[stiver james]

I have been messing with my ph lately with chemicals and thanks to the advice of the people in this forum I have stoped doing this. I have a question though. I have hard well water here in mich. ph is about 8.5. I run my water through an ro system which brings it down to about 6.9 or so. My conductivity is roughly 325-350ppm from the tap. From the ro system it falls anywhere between 7 and 10. So I add tap water back to it approx one gal. to 4gal of ro water. This brings the conductivity to 125ppm which I like. The only problem is even with this small amount of tap to ro water it raises my ph to about 7.5 and keeps it steady. A consistant ph is a must with discus from what I have read. Now my problem is I am told you must have a ph of between 6.0 and 6.8 to have a sucessful spawn. Even if I put canadian peat moss in the hob filter when I do water changes it will raise the ph. Not enough to affect the discus health but I am afraid it will affect any success in spawning. I read in a book of a breeder who used marine trace elements in the breeding tank and had success with it. Does anyone know if I can add Red sea brand trace elements to my water instead of tap water to keep my conductivity at 125? Or if anyone has any other suggestions to rectify this problem? Iam almost tapped out of money so I really can't afford to invest more money into my passion of breeding discus. Iam disabled due to a massive heart attack and then a quadruple by pass. I owned my own heating and cooling business and when your self-employed and this happens it really hurts financially. But Iam still here thanks to the good lord. Now I know for sure how one should enjoy life to the fullest. Believe me Iam really enjoying my fish. They keep me going. Anyway enough of my crying. Can anyone help me with this problem. Thanks, as always Jim

[ShinShin]

I am fortunate in that I do not have to mess with my water at all. If you have storage barrels for your water before you do a water change, just add percluric acid to the water until you reach the desired pH. Muratic acid is also acceptable. I commend you on trying to lower the pH. Too many say it doesn't matter.

I do not know what trace elements are contained in the product you mentioned. Perhaps another has used it and can explain.

[stiver james]

The elements in the trace from what I found from symbols are. Iodine, MO-Molybdenum, ZN (COULDN'T FIND), V- VANADIUM, As-Arsenic, Ti-titanium, Ni-nickel, Cr-chromium, Mn-Manganese, Co-Cobalt, Se-Selenium, W-Tungsten, Ge-Germanium, Ag-couldn't find, Bi-Bismuth, Sb-Antimony, SN-tin, Nb-Niobium, Be-Beryllium, Au-Gold,ln-indium, y-yttrium. Hope this helps someone, to help me as I don't know what most of these are. Thanks, jim

[RyanH]

If you choose to mess with your water, you can try using trace minerals like crushed coral or RO Right powder which I've found to be pretty reasonably priced and easy to use.

I have Discus spawn in pH 7.4 several times per week. Most of the Discus we keep these days are a result of dozens of generations that have been bred in captivity. I don't think that acid water is any longer a prerequisite to successful spawning. JMHO

-Ryan

[pcsb23]

I tend to agree with Ryan, whilst I'm not a breeder, I have successful spawns in the range 7.2 to 7.7. It doesn't mean you shouldn't try though!!

I've not used the marine trace elements but I have used reef salt to harden the water off, thats cheap as you won't needs loads, like a teasponn full, and it contains loads of trace elements too! Expereiment with it and maybe filtered tap water and see how it goes!

Mat, is percluric acid known as anything else?? I've known people add hydrochloric acid (yeeks second strongest acid if memory serves!!) and phosphoric but haven't heard of this one.

Paul.

[billeagan]

If you are using R/O water you should put something in the water to add back the necessary elements. Your TDS is probably near 0.

I prefer equilibrium by seachem or sera's mineral salts. R/O right is ok, but IMO is not as effective as the other two.

Seachems product is 1tbsp per 20 and hits 3GH on the nose.

[Alight]

For trace elements, I use Kent Discus Essential.

Sort of a toss up for what to do.

You could just try breeding at pH 7.5 and see what happens, with your water mix as it is.

If this doesn't work, the cheapest alternative, (if you're comfortable working with something that can burn your skin off if you mess up and kill your fish) is to buy some muriatic acid from Home Depot. They sell it as a pool pH lowering agent. It is very inexpensive. Something like $5 for two gallons, which will last you a lift time.

Next, dilute down some of this nasty stuff into a gallon jug (mix it 9 to 1 with some of your straight RO water). Now you can handle the stuff, and if you spill some, or get it on yourself, your skin won't peel away.

For your water, it will take only about 5 milliliters of the acid in the dilute form, to bring your pH down to 7 or below.

Must make sure that when you start to adjust the pH with this stuff, that you do it in your aging tank, not in your fish tank. What will happen is that immediatley after you add the acid, the pH will drop very low. Then it will "bounce" back up in aerated water over a couple of hours, to the pH that it will stay at. If this final pH is too high, add a bit more acid. If it is too low, add a bit of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).

However, you will find that by reducing your pH below 7 by this method, you will have greatly lowered your kH. What this means is that you have very little buffering capacity, so your water will drift lower in pH fairly quicky. With two adult discus in a 30 gallon tank, for example, you can expect your pH to go down 0.2 pH points per day. This won't matter much if you change your water at least every 3 days. If you do go longer, you may want to buffer the tank back up a bit by adding some baking soda directly to the water (mix it in a small cup of tank water before dumping it in the tank). About 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda will raise your pH 0.2-0.4 pH points. Unlike with adding acid, there will be no "bounce" when adding baking soda. Once it has dissolved, your pH will have been raised as much as it is going to go.

You can see with all of this complexity, why it would be easier just to try pH 7.5, and see what happens, and only go the much more complicated route, that has the potential to burn yourself and kill your fish if you get desparate.

I actually do use the muriatic acid method, daily. However, I've been doing it for nearly 30 years, and am very comfortable working with caustic substances. My water is much more basic than yours--nearly pH 9.0, even when mixed 1 to 4 with RO water. If I had your water, I'd certainly try the water "as is" first.

[Cosmo]

Hardness= RO Right
Buffering (RO water) = ph stable
Trace Elements = Discus Essentials

All Kent BTW

Works for me :o

Jim

[sidra]

I use Kent Discus Essential as well (just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents)

Kristen

[billeagan]

Be very, very careful with muratic. I use it and made a mistake and lost an entire tank...

I use 12CC's per 55gallons and drops my hard lake, MI 7.8 ph to 6.2-6.4