Water for weekly water changes...

[ojdewet]

I have been buying RO water to do my water changes for my Amazon set-up as our tap water is very hard but it is quite a drive to get the RO water and I battle to find the time with all my other time commitments. My tank is a 75 gallon and I do a 33% weekly water change. Our tap water has the following parameters:


pH of 8.4
KH of 6


Can anyone recommend any natural mechanisms (first prize) or chemical mechanisms (second prize) to lower the pH of our tap water? If I can get my tap water to the right water parameters at home it will make life much easier and it will enable me to do more regular water changes since I want to ultimately try and breed with discus.

I have a second tank set-up that I cycle my water in for a week before doing the changes to ensure that it is the same as my main tank as I believe in absolute stability of water parameters. I have read that you can cycle water through peat moss to lower pH but I am but I am not sure if a KH of 6 would be too high in terms of buffering capacity for that.

Any other recommendations? If not, I will just have to break the bank and buy a RO unit for my home...

Regards
OJ

[DiscusDude85]

Why dont you buy an r/o unit? I bought mine for 120bucks and it was the best spent 120 ever. You probably dont really even need r/o, I use it because im trying to breed. Discus are very tough fish that can take a wide range of ph and water hardness. Ive read alot where people have kept discus in 5.5 ph all the way up to 7.8, Some keep their discus at 120 ppm tds others keep it wat higher than that!. Ill let somone more qualified answer some more of your question.



Joe

[Moon]

I have very hard well water with ph 8.2 and TDS 400. All my discus are grown out in this water. RO water is used only for breeders. Your water is OK for raising discus. If the biotope is Amazon some of your plants may not fare well in hard water but your discus should be OK.

[Tropical Haven]

If your not at the breeding stage yet I wouldn't be going through all the trouble that you are going through now. Your discus will grow up just fine in your tap water. My tap water has a PH of 8.6 and my discus do very well in it.

[ojdewet]

Thank you I am not at a stage where breeding is on my priority list - as long as I can keep the discus in a healthy state I am happy. The fish look very happy as is but I made the mistake of reading up too much - it can be such a scary experience that you worry too much and forget to also enjoy the hobby!

Just want to verify one thing: is it true that at very high pH the toxins are more harmful / toxic to fish? If this is the case then I can just increase my frequency of water changes to compensate for this.

(I do have a water filter in my kitchen with a micron filter, ion exchange filter, carbon filter and ultraviolet so even though it is not RO it is very clean water in terms of other impurities just does not reduce pH).

Cheers
OJ

[Graham]

As pH an temp increases so does the toxicity of the ammonia/NH3 that the fish give off. As long as it's be oxidized to nitrite/NO2, then nitrate/NO3; the pH isn't a problem.

At lower pH's, 7.2 and below, the NH3 that the fish give off is changed to ammonium/NH4 and is not toxic.

Look at the back of an ammonia test booklet, that's what the chart is.

This is the only toxin to be worried about