Water Changes

[Ronin]

Ok I am very nervous with doing water changes because I know that it is the cause of most of my problems with my tank. Main problem my fish are not very happy. Problem number two is my plants die all the time probably due to high phosphate levels. So I went out and bought a merlin RO unit. Now my questions is this:
1. Since the RO unit is cold only what is the best method to get the water to tank at the correct temp
2. Do I need to do ph adjustments or any other additives to the water
3. How many water changes are necessary a week

I have had 2 discus die and it is absolutely hart breaking and I cant bare to have it happen any more.
description of my tank is it is a 90 gallon with a canister filter, compact fluorescence lights are used. I use to have those bio-wheels which I felt helped a lot ever since I got rid of them the plants seem to suffer. I do a 50% water change a week to a week and a half using only tap water until RO is installed. Please lend any advice I am all ears.
Thanks is advance

[hazeldazel]

I add phosphate fertilizer to my tank so i doubt that it would kill your plants. If you have a Bio-Wheel, the splashing wheel tends to off-gas the CO2 in the water, and if the CO2 levels get too low, the plants will definitely die. Do you have DIY CO2 or pressurized CO2? If pressurized, simply turn up the CO2 to compensate for the loss. How many ppm CO2 do you usually have? You want to aim for 20-30ppm. If the plants are dying instead of growing, they will release ammonia into the tank which your discus won't appreciate.

[Ronin]

I have no idea what my ppm for C02 is i have a can disperser which does not let you know the exact count but I have not noticed much of a difference using it.

[GrillMaster]

Wow Ronin....No offense, but readin this post, you have absolutely no idea of what you are doin!!!

RO has not one thing to do with plants!!

Your presumption that high P04 is killin yer plants justs adds to the fact that you haven't read anything about plants!

I can only imagine how unhappy these fish are...

My suggestion....read a little before you post again...Please......

or is this a joke??

-Mark-

[pcsb23]

Ronin,

Unless the phosphate reading is off the scale the phosphates won't be killing your plants and the additional water changes also won't be responsible for the death of your discus. Without wishing to sound mean or overly critical I think you may need to improve your basic fishkeeping skills.

Keeping healthy plants in a tank is an acquired skill and takes a lot of dedication, practice and perseverance, some would argue it is more difficult than keeping discus. If you get it wrong it costs a few $$ but nothing suffers. Keeping discus, or any fish, is also another separate skill that needs to be acquired, get this wrong and an animal suffers. Trying to do both without the basic knowledge is a recipe for disaster. I would respectfully suggest you do one or the other.

You need to decide if you want to save your fish or your plants, if it was me it would be the fish and I would remove the plants, stop the CO2, remove the substrate and increase the w/c's.

[Polar_Bear]

Hi Ronin,
You are having trouble following water changes? Have you tested your tap water? The first thing I would do is test the tap and find out what is in it. Also you didn't mention what you are using to de-chlorinate your water, what product do you use?
How long ago did you change your filters? I ask this because while bio-wheels do off gas CO2 they are excellent bio-filters, if you merely changed your filters you may have a biological problem, since the new canister will not have time to have built up a bio presence yet. I mainly concerned that you are seeing problems following a water change though. Again, testing your tap water would be most important, also finding out if you have chlorine or chloramine in your water would go a long way towards helping you. If you have chloramine even the RO unit will merely break the bond and you will be left with high ammonia levels, so finding out what you have it pretty important. Prime or Amquel Plus will both make Nitrogen harmless, so getting either of those products is recommended.
I have to agree with the others about phoshate, it is almost certainly not your probelm. My best guess given the information you supplied is that what you really have is a lighting problem, but it is only a guess.

[Ronin]

Opps I thought I was posting in the discus for beginners forum. k so no i have not a clue what I am doing thanks for pointing that out good on you. Also the plant issue is only a side concern main concern are my three question
1. being mixing of RO with tap and best method for adjusting the temp
2. how often do I do water changes as there are conflicting reports and finally
3. Do I need to use additives ie trace minerals ph up down etc. I was told that since my water was high in phosphate that it was causing a boom in my algea problem which is killing my plants. I dont think I clarified that sorry. I am using prime by seechem to de-chlorinate. I need a solid C02 system which I am researching right now but I want to tackle one thing at a time since there is possibilities of PH shock when using C02 incorrectly

[dishpanhands]

Don't try to adjust your PH. May cause it to crash..I would mix the tap water in your storage tank, and get it to tempature. If your worried about the phosphates in your water why use tap water? You can get all kinds of stuff like RO right and other stuff to put the minerals back into your RO water.
The answer to how offten to do the WC depends on Bio load.
The solution for pollution is dilution. In other word lots of WC's
HTH

[Ronin]

Don't try to adjust your PH. May cause it to crash..I would mix the tap water in your storage tank, and get it to tempature. If your worried about the phosphates in your water why use tap water? You can get all kinds of stuff like RO right and other stuff to put the minerals back into your RO water.
The answer to how offten to do the WC depends on Bio load.
The solution for pollution is dilution. In other word lots of WC's
HTH

The only reason I was thinking tap water is to be able to use hot water to adjust the temp. I live in a 1 bedroom apartment and dont have room for a storage tank to age the water and get up to the right temp. Thats why I am researching a method to this problem.
So I think I will try 2 WC @ 30% a week and see how that goes and take it from there. I only feed twice a day in the morning flakes and afternoon frozen and I use nets so there is less waste.
Sorry for my inexperience in the matter I know I must sound over my head and in some ways I am but I am not afraid of the challange but if you ask my fish they might have another opinion. :D

[GrillMaster]

Opps I thought I was posting in the discus for beginners forum. k so no i have not a clue what I am doing thanks for pointing that out good on you. Also the plant issue is only a side concern main concern are my three question
1. being mixing of RO with tap and best method for adjusting the temp
2. how often do I do water changes as there are conflicting reports and finally
3. Do I need to use additives ie trace minerals ph up down etc. I was told that since my water was high in phosphate that it was causing a boom in my algea problem which is killing my plants. I dont think I clarified that sorry. I am using prime by seechem to de-chlorinate. I need a solid C02 system which I am researching right now but I want to tackle one thing at a time since there is possibilities of PH shock when using C02 incorrectly

Like I said earlier. I meant no offense.

The level you are at right now with your limited experience will require alot of researching, an reading on your part.

1. I see no reason for using RO water. That is mainly used in breeder tanks. It wont help your plants, or algae problem. It was mentioned earlier that aging the water in a barrel with airstone an heater will let you control the temperature before putting it in the tank.

2. It depends on the circumstances. If you have a planted tank changing the water everyday will be counter productive for the plants since they wont have time to absorb the nutrients they require to grow, especially if macros, micros, an c02 is used. Juvenile discus suffer in a planted tank because Wc's are usually once or twice a week and water conditions are not optimum for them to thrive.

Having discus in a bare bottom tank allows easy maintenance, lots of water changes, an is easier overall to keep healthy discus over the long haul.

3.Hap hazardly throwing additives in a tank is a recipe for disaster. A low tech, low light non c02 planted tank will allow you to easiest opportunity to learn. It doesnt require additives unless you want to put fert tabs in the substrate for sword plants an such. C02 is not required in a low light tank. Plus, most plants that thrive in the higher temps of discus tanks dont require high light, or c02.

High P04 is caused by dying plants, decomposing plant matter, an bad water conditions. If to high it will in fact kill fish. Yes it will also cause algae. I would try a low tech planted tank first. Plant it pretty heavy with swords, wisteria, anubias, a few crypts, water sprite, sags etc... an just leave it alone. Change the water once or twice a week, feed the fish a couple times a day, lights on for 8-10 hours. See how it goes for you for 6 months. Maybe after that time you can introduce some adult discus in the tank.

The level you are at now, combining discus with a planted tank will be a disheartening experience for you I believe. If everything fails, you will want to just throw in the towel. Your trying to walk before you can crawl.

You can ask all the questions you want here an get various answers, but it will not help the whole big picture of your 90G tank.

Research, like you are doing with the c02 issue. Read what others are doing with their planted tanks. Then decide what would be the easiest most rewarding way to set yours up. HTH

-Mark-

[aquaticplantman]

Ronin, I'm not sure if you realize that an RO unit only puts out water at about one gallon every 5 to 10 minutes. You have to collect it first (usually over-night), then mix, treat, or do whatever you're going to do with it. I'd also advise you to forget about RO for now. It won't help any of the problems you've described.

Others have already given you good advice too. Forget about RO, forget about CO2, and phophates aren't your problem. What you really need to do is find a way to age water before you do your water changes. Maybe you could put a 29 gallon tank underneath your 90? This is very important, so find some way to store water so that you can age and treat it before water changes. It doesn't have to be fancy, just some container with a heater and an airstone -- treat the water to remove chlorine/chloramine as needed, heat to match the tank water, and aerate for at least 24 hours prior to each water change. Spend $30-$50 on a pump and tubing so that you can pump this water into the tank.

Forget about your plants for now until you get this set up. Just pull out whatever dead plant material may accumulate, and know that whatever plants live are good ones to stick with. Don't do anything else differently until you see your discus responding positively to this kind of water change (unless of course they obviously need some medication).

Good Luck,
-- Matt H.

[dishpanhands]

I live in a 1 bedroom apartment and dont have room for a storage tank to age the water and get up to the right temp. Thats why I am researching a method to this problem.

Got to have a container to fill with RO. They take hours to make water.Not sure why you want to use one.
After you fill a container you will need to add air for awhile so you might as well heat it too. My fish hate unaged water they don't care If its from RO or tap.

If you are hunting short cuts to keeping discus you probly won't find many here. Just good advice..Many here will tell you that discus won't bind to fit your routine. You have to bind to what they want. If you are unable to do so you shouldn't keep discus. Try goldfish or guppies they are hardy fish that need little effort or equipment. I'm not trying to be hateful. Sorry if I sound that way.
HTH

[Ronin]

I get a gallon in .5 min with my unit and it produces 775 gallons per day. But I really like the idea of aging it under my tank. I think that is doable I will get one of those rubber maid bins and use a simple pump to get it in the tank. Now the more I think about it this a very good idea will make the work much easier for me. Bastalker no worries and your right need to do a lot of reading but since the RO unit is here and time is limited I figured I need to get a crash coarse right away just to get things rolling.

[pcsb23]

Using a Merli9n you will get loads of product water in a very short time, but you will still need to collect it in something, Its that conatiner you need to mix tap (filtered or Prime'd) back in to re-mineralise it. RO strips most of the minerals and nasties out of the water but it can be too pure. Merlins should give you a TDS in the range of 15 to 40PPM, which is fine in a BB tank with large daily changes but about as much use as a chocolate fireguard in a planted tank. You most likely don't need RO any way. Mark (bastalker)gave a great piece of advice above. I'me sure he didn't mean aqny offence earlier, nor did I. Trust me on this I have grown out out discus in a planted tank. BUT this was after I first new how to keep planted tanks and how to keep discus, I've 40+ years experience to draw on. I learnt 2 lessons growing out discus in a planted tank and proved 1 thing. I proved I could do it. The lessons were 1) it was damned hard work, and 2) I will never ever do it again :)

[aquaticplantman]

I thought 775 gallons a day was either too good to be true, or that you had plunked down an enormous amount of money on an industrial RO unit. I went to the Merlin website to get a look. It was too good to be true. Here's a quote from their website

Can the Merlin RO System run continously?
The Merlin was designed to provide 0.5 gpm continous flow of product water over the course of a 24 hour period or longer. If more than 10 gallons of product water will be used on a daily basis, you must add additional Sediment Filtration/Chlorine Removal capacity.

So basically, that filter is great for drinking water use, but running at "discus levels" will crap out their filters much too fast (which, incidentally, you have to buy from a Merlin rep.) I still say forget about using RO water. It'll be more headache than you need right now. Just fill your rubbermaid with tap water. By the way, if you have chloramines, you would still need to treat this RO water for ammonia removal.

-- Matt H.

[Ronin]

But I tested my water and its Hard will aging it sort that out along with using Prime? Thats such a trip every one was telling me "got to use RO water thats your problem" I had 2 people at the aquarium tell me that man thats not cool I wish I new this before spending $300 ha ha

[pcsb23]

Ronin, a lot depends on what you are wanting to do. I am vaguely familiar with the merlin unit, it really chunks out the water, but like Matt says it will chew consumables too.

You say your water is hard, why not test it for GH and KH, also test the PH straight from the tap,and leave a glass of water overnight and test that 12 to 24 hours later for ph. That way we are not guessing so much.

Stability is key for keeping healthy discus. Now I must admit I do use RO water, I don't use a merlin unit, I use one made in teh UK from the top (American) membranes. I don't use any additives and re-min using filtered tap. My supply has chloramines too ;)

BUT if all you are wanting to do is keep discus in relatively good health then stable water is more important than whether its ph this or that. Many people on here keep their discus well in hard water, some even get them to breed in it. Just because I do something doesn't mean that is the right advice to give to someone starting out on their discus adventures.

My advice is keep the RO unit, but before using that for your discus, test your water, all fishkeepers no matter what they keep should have water test kits imo. So get them results posted and then we can offer some solid advice.

[sleonard]

You don't need to sort the hardness out. Discus do just fine in hard water. They also do just fine in high Ph. The only reason to soften the water is for egg fertilization when breeding. There are a number of discus myths that are still widely believed but nevertheless, untrue. Read thru the sticky posts here and you will learn all you need.

To start you off I'll give you a few of the most important.

1) Water change, water change, water change. Discus ARE sensitive to water quality so the more water changes the better. Minimum for growing discus would be 50% every 2 days or alternatively 75% every 3 days.

2) Bare bottom tanks are the way to go. Allows pristine water conditions because you can clean the heck out of them often and easier.

3) Age new water at least 24 hrs before using. This gasses off CO2 and thereby stabilizes PH, dissapates chlorine (use Prime for chloramine), and preheats the water so there's no temperature shock with the water change.

4) At least 10 Gal. per discus.

5) Adult discus don't need nearly this amount of care. You can put them in tanks with substrate and even planted tanks and go to weekly water changes.

Scott

[Ronin]

Ok I think I am all set thanks for all the info. You guys have been great actually incredible so many responces in such a short time. So for now the RO unit will be for drinking water, I will be aging my water and doing a WC twice a week, I will also stop using C02 for now and check my results in a month or so, at which point I will add more plants. I am going to check my KH and PH levels tomorrow after I age my water see what its like.

Again Thank you all for your patience and experience.

[hazeldazel]

also forgot to mention, check out www.rexgrigg.com there is a lot of very good plant tank information for the beginner including a chart of how to determine your CO2 level based on a pH and a KH test.

[mikesmac]

Hello Ronin,

Not to confuse the issue but if you intend to keep discus, and possibly grow to have additional tank space as you get obsessed with them :) :) .....coming from someone that has and uses one.....the Merlin was one of the best investments I made. My Typhoon III made 75 gallons / day in the summer when the supply water was 65 degrees .....and I ran this CONTINUOUSLY and still couldn't keep up with the amount I needed. In the winter...forget about it...I was lucky to get 50 gallons in a 24 hour period because the supply came in at around 40 degrees..... and this is with my having over 100 psi coming in from the municipal water line. The Merlin gives me PLENTY of water even in the winter in a relatively short period of time and I have to reduce the pressure to 80 PSI because that is the recommended maximum on the unit. They are also more efficient than a conventional RO unit so you have A LOT less waste water per gallon of product water. And, just as an estimate based on the amount I use every day, I have probably made at least 25,000 gallons of product water and it still comes out at 000 to 001 TDS (my supply comes in at 135-140 TDS) and I haven't changed a filter yet. I bought extra membranes for it when I bought the unit and am now hoping that they don't go bad on me being stored for so long.

I don't know if a lot of people don't use these or what...but I haven't seen anyone that actually has one, like myself, write a bad review on them yet so don't be rushing to judgement thinking you messed up by buying it instead of a different one. Having used both kinds I can't imagine why more people haven't ditched their old ones and switched to these...the cost wasn't much more than I paid for my Typhoon III, and that difference has been more than made up for in both my time, and reduction of wasted water, not to mention the peace of mind in knowing that my water quality isn't going to suffer because I don't have enough to keep up on water changes.

Mike

[Ronin]

Hello Ronin,

Not to confuse the issue but if you intend to keep discus, and possibly grow to have additional tank space as you get obsessed with them :) :) .....coming from someone that has and uses one.....the Merlin was one of the best investments I made. My Typhoon III made 75 gallons / day in the summer when the supply water was 65 degrees .....and I ran this CONTINUOUSLY and still couldn't keep up with the amount I needed. In the winter...forget about it...I was lucky to get 50 gallons in a 24 hour period because the supply came in at around 40 degrees..... and this is with my having over 100 psi coming in from the municipal water line. The Merlin gives me PLENTY of water even in the winter in a relatively short period of time and I have to reduce the pressure to 80 PSI because that is the recommended maximum on the unit. They are also more efficient than a conventional RO unit so you have A LOT less waste water per gallon of product water. And, just as an estimate based on the amount I use every day, I have probably made at least 25,000 gallons of product water and it still comes out at 000 to 001 TDS (my supply comes in at 135-140 TDS) and I haven't changed a filter yet. I bought extra membranes for it when I bought the unit and am now hoping that they don't go bad on me being stored for so long.

I don't know if a lot of people don't use these or what...but I haven't seen anyone that actually has one, like myself, write a bad review on them yet so don't be rushing to judgement thinking you messed up by buying it instead of a different one. Having used both kinds I can't imagine why more people haven't ditched their old ones and switched to these...the cost wasn't much more than I paid for my Typhoon III, and that difference has been more than made up for in both my time, and reduction of wasted water, not to mention the peace of mind in knowing that my water quality isn't going to suffer because I don't have enough to keep up on water changes.

Mike

Hey Mike
I dont think I bought the wrong unit actually far from it! I think it is pretty damn good. I just finished hooking it up last night and the water taste great the only thing is it is really slow and loud so I am not sure I have it set up right. I have about 90 psi when not in use and when in use it drops to about 30 or 40 psi. But I am remain hopeful that this is do in some part in my error. The only thing now is I am going to take everyone's advice here and only use aged tap and see what happens :)