R/O WATER

[Discusfishies]

Just wondering with R/O water do u need to add anything for the Kh? As everyone know Discus like a stable PH. I find once I adjust my Kh of course my PH goes up, so then I adjust it back down using a set combination of Seacheam Acid Buffer and Alkaline Buffer which are used for R/O water. But I am finding that my Ph keeps creeping back up in my tank.

So If I dont try to adjust my Kh and my Ph stays stable, would that be a bad thing? Taking in account that Kh doesn't have any benifit to fish. Or do u think that by NOT raising the Kh cauld cause a PH crash? Because Kh is suppose to help stablise a constant PH.

[BIGFOOT]

Just wondering with R/O water do u need to add anything for the Kh? As everyone know Discus like a stable PH. I find once I adjust my Kh of course my PH goes up, so then I adjust it back down using a set combination of Seacheam Acid Buffer and Alkaline Buffer which are used for R/O water. But I am finding that my Ph keeps creeping back up in my tank.

So If I dont try to adjust my Kh and my Ph stays stable, would that be a bad thing? Taking in account that Kh doesn't have any benifit to fish. Or do u think that by NOT raising the Kh could cause a PH crash? Because Kh is suppose to help stablise a constant PH.


Why are you setting the kh then adjusting the ph?

Alkaline Buffer is all you need to set the ph nothing else. Now as far as ph you nee to mix the Alkaline Buffer and Acid buffer at set ratio to get a certain ph. Now remember that these two chemicals are for ph only. Butt all fish need some gh as well. Equilibrium is the way to set the gh in ro water. All the above is good but you can also mix a % of tap back to ro which is the easiest butt you might not get the ph you are looking for there either .

Why are you using 100% ro any way? For breeding from what I read its not necessary to have a certain ph. Its more of a stable ph even if you raising baby fish.

[dandestroy]

YEs pH is related to total hardness but,

a lot of buffer are sold on the market that will stabilize you buffer but you wont mesure them using your KH kit. Why its because they are phospho base buffer. (like neutral regulator and discuss buffe from seachem).

So check your PO4 as well. goes high PO4 is a pain if you have a planted tank.

think of Kh like this, it is a representation of your buffering capability of your water. Higher your hardness his more difficult it will be to change the pH...therefore adding seachem acid buffer (which is not a PO4 buffer) will be a short step toward low pH cause the next morning the buffering capability of your water will make that pH bounce back to what it was.

SO perfect RO/DI water would have in tehory no buffering capability, and could be subjected to any pH modification quite easily. But all these modification would probably work on your KH to achieve a desired pH.

With Tap water coming out over 100 ppm, i found that using discus buffer with neutral regulator would work the best as compare to acid buffer. But like I said, you would have to check your pH quite often cause it would never be stable on the long rung...plus your KH would be pointless cause your buffeing capability in this case would be base on PO4 instead of calcium hardness. (bassically any ions could be use to increase buffering capability as long as they are stable in the water)

Solution, either you put some RO/DI trace to the level you wich to have (between 30 to 80 would make it a low pH 6.5 to 7, and would make it prety stable too unless something critical happen like you droping javel in the water, or forgetting a dead fish during one week).

For my part the tap come a litle to hard and the PH start at 7.4 and increase over an over. Cutting 25% with 75% tap solved my problem. PH is 7 and KH 80, and it seems that my heavilly planted tank helps a lot in stabilising water condition.

The worst mistake I did (I should say the second worst if you read my post in the disease section)...I was trying to get that perfect 6.8...to bring my tap from 7.4 to 6.8...BAd bad bad idea.

You'll find that seachem buffer, or any other are nothing compare to the buffering capacity of your fish. pH is a log scale so any 0.1 change is a 10x time increase for your fish. Fish can adapt... not your water.

I have tetra neon that I could not kill, taht got into a 5 gal tank without any care what soever. If I put them in a tank with pH 7 they would proably die uite fast, because they have adapted to 8.4 (this was over 10 month or so).

Search the web and you will see that a lot of knonw breeder donw do that acid 6.5 and low 20 ppm. They use what they have (sometime up to 7.5 and 150 ppm) and their fish are great.

Stability is all! (I use to read post like this and keep trying to bring my pH down anyways...and I'm sure you will do that do...and in 6 month you will probably answer a post about the fact that stability is prime and that perfect PH is worthless).

Do you think your fish knows that they are at 7.2instead of 6.8 ;)

One thing they probably keep thinking is ...dam here is that bucket of water that make me fill sick cause it not what I'm use too.

What your PH and KH...and PO4..waht buffer have you been trying.

been trough it so ask all the question you like and i will try to answer as best as i can...cause I ahve share that same pain

[dandestroy]

forgot 100% RO without trace is bad... it make the cells compensating for ions concentration and swell and explode...

that apply to all of you that drinks RO water (stomach cells are prety tuff but they are still afected...if you don't believe me I will work it out in the lab and post some pic...in addition, you need mineral as well that are normally in normal water)

[Discusfishies]

Thanks Bigfoot,
I do use Equilibrium to set my GH and also use Seachem Discus Trace. Basically because R/O takes alost all minerals etc., what I wanted to know do u need to add Carbonated hardness? or is a Kh less than 1 alright?
If so then I would be left with a
Ph around 7
Gh I can set to what ever I want
and Kh which is less than 1, or it should be as close to 0 because it has been through a R/o unit.

As for why I use R/o it is because the quality of my water is poor and I have found that my fish are very happy with R/O and not happy with my tap water.

I am just about to start breeding so I want to find out about my KH first

Thanks Dandestroy,
Your info is great, I am trying to achieve a stable PH for my R/o water. I was using the other Seachem buffers which were great and kept my Ph stable BUT then I had a extreemly high phosphate problem, bad algea etc. Ok, ok it probably didn't worry fish but if I didnt clean it daily it would of made it hard to see my Discus LOL

I realise that the non-phosphate buffers arn't as stable as the Phosphate based buffers, so really do I need them at all? I do 50% water changes every second day.

I think that the only problem with not adjusting Kh would be the fact that the Ph still might not be stable and go the other way and crash instead of rising. I dont know, tell me if this right?

[dandestroy]

Thanks Bigfoot,
I do use Equilibrium to set my GH and also use Seachem Discus Trace. Basically because R/O takes alost all minerals etc., what I wanted to know do u need to add Carbonated hardness? or is a Kh less than 1 alright?
If so then I would be left with a
Ph around 7
Gh I can set to what ever I want
and Kh which is less than 1, or it should be as close to 0 because it has been through a R/o unit .

You should be fine with the discus trace...exept that it is a PO4 buffer and like you said...you might end up with some algua. 1 degree KH is 17.8 ppm and is kinda low but not that bad. In fact discus prefer soft water so anything under 50 ppm would be good. I f I was you I would just put my mix in and note the PH morning and night until next water change. That is going to give you right away if you have an issue or not. If you pH does not change over 0.5 unit over a 3 to 4 day period your all good!


I was using the other Seachem buffers which were great and kept my Ph stable BUT then I had a extreemly high phosphate problem, bad algea etc. Ok, ok it probably didn't worry fish but if I didnt clean it daily it would of made it hard to see my Discus LOL

Now you know why discus buffer is phosphate based. Some says that PO4 is not that great for discus either...but a lot of people says a lot of thing, but real research are lacking here



I do 50% water changes every second day.

Well in that case you don't have to worry much about pH crash and stability. Basic Ro/DI trace like your using should be fine after a few day. so stability is acheived by having you changing the water on a regular basis...which is good for discus.



I think that the only problem with not adjusting Kh would be the fact that the Ph still might not be stable and go the other way and crash instead of rising. I dont know, tell me if this right?

RO/DI trace and discus buffer are inteaded for that issue and are trustable, and I would not worry much about this issue, just make a quick pH test everytime you change the water, so if something is wrong, then you will compensate with more water change and a litle incresed kH until the situation is resolve. With a bare bottom tank, no substrate, no plant, and frequent water change, there is no real way that your water is gonna go crazy on you. This mostly happen when people add new stuff to the water like medication, then some issue might appears (that says water change are what bring your stability...and once again stability is the key...exept :D ...cause there is always an exeption...inducing breeding require a small unstability, like pooring some water that is a bit cooler and softer for exemple.

[BIGFOOT]

I wouldnt use phophate buffers at all. All you need is the Acid buffer and Alkaline Buffer,Equilibrium. Alkaline Buffer brings up your kh hardness. Acid buffer lower kh and gives you a low ph. Equilibrium sets gh which is very important for juvies. Most people are running 200 ppm of gh with juvies or there abouts any way, you can find out more about in the breeding section

[Discusfishies]

Thanks,
So at the moment I am using
EQULIBRIUM
DISCUS TRACE
AKALINE BUFFER
ACID BUFFER

Giving me R/O water of

PH 7 but unstable and climbs up by the next day
GH 3
Kh 3

So I might just cut out the buffers(Alkaline and acid)
which is going to leave my Kh close to 0
GH will be the same
and PH as far as I know seams to stay at 7

All I am trying to achieve is that "Stable PH" LOL
which seams to be the most important. And hopefully very low Kh isn't going to matter at all

Thanks for the detailed info Dandestroy
As for Phosphates, I seam to agree with those that say that Discus dont like it. Unfortunally I have searched and searched and cannot find any info saying that it has an effect on fish. Even the company that makes the product to remove phosphates from aquariums did not know wheather extreemly high phosphates have an effect on fish.

[BIGFOOT]

Thanks,
So at the moment I am using
EQULIBRIUM

AKALINE BUFFER
ACID BUFFER

Giving me R/O water of

PH 7 but unstable and climbs up by the next day
GH 3
Kh 3

So I might just cut out the buffers(Alkaline and acid)
which is going to leave my Kh close to 0
GH will be the same
and PH as far as I know seams to stay at 7

All I am trying to achieve is that "Stable PH" LOL
which seams to be the most important. And hopefully very low Kh isn't going to matter at all

Thanks for the detailed info Dandestroy
As for Phosphates, I seam to agree with those that say that Discus dont like it. Unfortunally I have searched and searched and cannot find any info saying that it has an effect on fish. Even the company that makes the product to remove phosphates from aquariums did not know wheather extreemly high phosphates have an effect on fish.


I deleted out of your quote what you should get rid of the other are non phosphate buffers.

[BIGFOOT]

I just wanted to add is Good Luck at getting a stable ph. I tryed this same thing for months prier to buying my Discus. The water always either creep up or down. Butt I did get within a .3 which most say it wont hurt nothing except you wallet. And if you change water on a daily basis the low kh of 1 will not bother anything. I notice my water got very cloudy when kh dropped below one.

[h2oplantscritters]

I have a planted tank and maintain my RO water via Seachem Equilibruim (4 GH), Alkaline and Acid Buffers (KH 4). I also dose CO2 via a controller and maintain a stable ph at 6.66 to 6.69. Once I started using the controller life became simple. WC are easy by providing the same amount of additives and fish seem to prosper.

Controllers and CO2 system is expensive up front, but cheap in the long run.

[Paul Curtis]

Here is what I do. It is probably not the best but the fish seem to like it, it is not too expensive, and it takes very little time and space.

R/O water drips directley into tank.
Change 10 gallons of water every day (about 15%)
Add 1/2 tsp of Kent R/O right.
Add 1/2 tsp of Seachem Acid buffer
Add 5/8 tsp of Seachem Alkaline buffer.
Lots of heaters (The input water comes in cold and you need enough additional heating capacity to make sure that the water temp does not drop)

What I get
PH of about 6.5. The daily variance is about 0.15.

The whole process is very easy, and quick. Less than 5 minutes.

The fish have been very happy(They have started to lay eggs).

No loss of discus, or disease, in the 8 months I have had them.

What I don't like

I have 4 ugly heaters in my tank.

If I have to do a big water change the PH swing is about 0.25

Fear of flooding. I have primay and backup flow valves as well as a water sensor but there is the potential for water to overflow the tank.

[Cosmo]

Can't keep my glasses on too long at one time (nose too sore) so I didn't read all the threads... apologize for repeating anything that might have been said...

Many manufacturers tell you to adjust the ph first, they tell you to add buffers that bring the ph up and then use acidic based compounds to bring it down. IMO they tell you this to sell more product. Oh yeah.. label directions are worthless too.

I tried those routines when I first started using RO and it creats $hit water. Both the alkaline and acidic buffers add GH so you end up either with hard water, or you don't add enough stable salts to achieve a good GH without blowing your TDS reading through the roof.

I add neutral salts and buffers (only) as the water accumulates in the storage tanks. ONce the tanks are full I first test for TDS. You cannot get a good PH reading without sufficient solids in the water for the ph meter to read. After I test for TDS, I use my PH meter to test for ph. I've been doing this a long time and I'm usually really close to the parameters I want, if I"m off, I add either salts or buffers to bring the water to where I want it. I NEVER ADD PH REDUCER.

The water in the storage bins are circulated with a Quiet One 3000, and aerated with a Rena 400 24/7 - as well as heated of course.

Once I'm happy with the TDS and PH, I add Kent Discus Essentials and Prime then let it mix another hour or so before the WCs.

This routine produces rock solid soft water that never crashes. Believe it or don't

Jim

[h2oplantscritters]

Cosmo, can't argue with success, but why use Prime with RO water. Only reason I could think of is for chloramine removal otherwise you are increasing the potential phosphate load? I use a RODI unit and don't worry about using Prime.

Dan

[WAK]

[QUOTE=Discusfishies]Thanks,
So at the moment I am using
EQULIBRIUM
DISCUS TRACE
AKALINE BUFFER
ACID BUFFER

Giving me R/O water of

PH 7 but unstable and climbs up by the next day
GH 3
Kh 3

So I might just cut out the buffers(Alkaline and acid)
which is going to leave my Kh close to 0
GH will be the same and PH as far as I know seams to stay at 7

All I am trying to achieve is that "Stable PH" LOL
which seams to be the most important. And hopefully very low Kh isn't going to matter at all

If you leave the kh and gh at 0 you don,t really know the ph.For test kits and ph pens to read ph accuratley you need to have some dissolved solids in the water.