Discus buffer and KH powder?

[grantbudd74]

Do you use these in your breeding tanks? What do you set your hardness to and your PH to? I do not understand degrees hardness so if you could tell me your numbers in a different way that would be great. I do understand PH lol!

Sorry I live in Australia and we don't use degrees hardness well my LFS dont.

Thx

Cant do 100 percent water changes here we have a drought! I have a new pair forming and want to try breeding them,

[Eddie]

Do you use these in your breeding tanks? What do you set your hardness to and your PH to? I do not understand degrees hardness so if you could tell me your numbers in a different way that would be great. I do understand PH lol!

Sorry I live in Australia and we don't use degrees hardness well my LFS dont.

Thx

Cant do 100 percent water changes here we have a drought! I have a new pair forming and want to try breeding them,

Well, 100% water changes are not necessary. Maybe when/if you have fry, they will require some good quality water from water changes.

It really depends on your stocking levels on how much water needs to be changed and when.

Discus buffers or whatever are totally un-necessary. You just need to try and keep your PH constant. If you need to raise your KH for PH stabilty, you can try using baking soda or a little crushed coral.

Eddie

[grantbudd74]

HI Eddy

thx for the reply. my Ph tap water is 7 out of the tap so I would use buffer to bring it down to 6.6 and then a bit of KH powder o stop Ph swings as you mentioned. Other than that is that all I have to worry about?

thx

[Mr Wild]

You don't ever need to do that PH7 is fine some people here have much higher than that and theor fish are doing great! Don't fiddle, fill and bucket of water and airate overnight then take you PH reading again and let us know what that is.

[Chad Hughes]

Do you use these in your breeding tanks? What do you set your hardness to and your PH to? I do not understand degrees hardness so if you could tell me your numbers in a different way that would be great. I do understand PH lol!

Sorry I live in Australia and we don't use degrees hardness well my LFS dont.

Thx

Cant do 100 percent water changes here we have a drought! I have a new pair forming and want to try breeding them,

How do you measure hardness in your area? With breeding, I would recommend using a TDS (total dissolved solids) meter. They are not expensive and will help you treamendously with breeding discus. As Kath mentioned, there is no need to adjust Ph.

Best wishes!

[grantbudd74]

Ok I am so used to adding stuff to my water. I will fill a bucket and do as requested and let you guys know what the Ph comes out as.

[Eddie]

Ok I am so used to adding stuff to my water. I will fill a bucket and do as requested and let you guys know what the Ph comes out as.

Yeah, the only thing to add is probably something to remove chlorine or chloramines, depending on how your water company treats the water.

Discus just need consistency and with PH at 7, you are golden. Just do as suggested and check your water after 24 hours of aeration and see what your PH does.

HTH
Eddie

[cveks]

i have one pair of blue turquises and i tried almost all water conditions with them and everything was unsuccessfull until I didnt add on teaspoon of discus buffer to water. I tried with peat filtering in the past but didnt helped. This time I added one teaspoon of discus buffer to 100L water and was filtering with peat and I had success.


TDS was 90 ppm, kH 3 and pH was 6.6-6.8 .

I had these water parameters in the past like more than 10 times with pH range from 6.0 to 7.0 and all spawns went without success until I did not added little discus buffer.

Dunno why .

Today I got around 50 fry attached to their parents.

[LizStreithorst]

Chad Huges is correct. PH is not as important as TDS when breeding. You need to buy a meter. Like he asked, how do you measure kH and gH in Australia? Surely you should be able to purchase some type of test kit?

[Mr Wild]

Liz, I just bought a GH KH test kit then a small TDS meter off ebay only about $20 and has been great. I am in Australia.

[grantbudd74]

sorry about the late post. Ok they are shaking at each other so fingers crossed they still love each other when I see them tomorrow.

so the readings today were:

GH 50
PH 7
KH 3

I measure using a 10ml dropper test kit. This is pretty much what I get from the tap after 24hrs of heating and aeration my WC water.

If I do not have a TDS meter what GH would you go for? This is very soft and they have lived in PH of 6.6 and a GH of 8 and KH of 4 when using my buffers and hardness powder.

Any thoughts? Am I on the right track or do I really need that TDS meter? People I speak to here never use one and all I have to do is change my water.

Is this a case of too many cooks?

[Chad Hughes]

sorry about the late post. Ok they are shaking at each other so fingers crossed they still love each other when I see them tomorrow.

so the readings today were:

GH 50
PH 7
KH 3

I measure using a 10ml dropper test kit. This is pretty much what I get from the tap after 24hrs of heating and aeration my WC water.

If I do not have a TDS meter what GH would you go for? This is very soft and they have lived in PH of 6.6 and a GH of 8 and KH of 4 when using my buffers and hardness powder.

Any thoughts? Am I on the right track or do I really need that TDS meter? People I speak to here never use one and all I have to do is change my water.

Is this a case of too many cooks?

I used the titration method as you are using when I first started with breeding. I went to a TDS meter due to it's ease of use. You turn it on and dip it in the tank. Instant TDS reading. If you do not want to use the TDS meter, the last time I tested with a titration kit against TDS it took 2 drops to change the color in the test tube to equal about 80 TDS.

The method that you choose to use is all based on what you are comfortable with. IMO, TDS is a much more accurate way of determining the true conductivity of the water. Hope that helps!

Best wishes!

[Mr Wild]

For $29 on ebay they are cheap and easy to use, I dip test b4 any water goes into my tanks. HTH

[grantbudd74]

hey Kath can u post the link as I can not find a meter for $29 and what range do u go for?

[Mr Wild]

I try for 150ppm, this is the one I have atm.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/TDS-Meter-and-Thermometer-Total-Dissolved-Solids-NEW_W0QQitemZ200362470861QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_B_I _Electrical_Test_Equipment?hash=item2ea688adcd&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A4%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A975%7C2 93%3A1%7C294%3A200