A few questions

[nc0gnet0]

Hello all!

I am about to imbark on becoming a new discuss owner. I guess that makes me a newbie (argh). I am not new to fish keeping in general, just this species. I understand much about medications, the cycle, filtration etc etc. Currently (don't laugh) I keep koi.

My plan is too setup a 100 gallon tall tank dedicated to discus, perhaps with 6-8 discus and maybe a pleco. My problem is I have liquid rock for water.

PH 8.2-8.4
KH 200-220
GH 300 +

Now, I do run a water softner, in which I only use Morton Solar salt (no additives). This brings my GH down to nill verified by an api lquid test kit-one drop. this brings my salintiy up to .05%, which seems to be fine for discus. However, as we all now water softners do not impact KH or PH.

I am really curious how others out there in my situation cope. I am seriously considering a rodi system, and would love to hear some feedback as to which system others have and there opinion of it. with such a high KH reading things like chems, peat, and driftwoods effect would be minimal at best.

Also, I see a bare bottom tank is highly recomended. I was wondering if I could use some travertine tile on the bottom of the tank for astetic purposes?

I read somewhere that AC is bad for Discus....this makes no sense to me as AC is pretty inert stuff...any opinions?

Now I realize I am a newbie, but I do understand all the basics, and with Koi I know how to scrape and scope, proper dosing with PP in PPM, etc etc.

[Jhhnn]

Other enthusiasts seem to be able to keep discus in very hard water, if not successfully breed them. I can't speak to that from experience, but rather second hand.

Travertine is a carbonate rock, so you probably don't want to use that in an aquarium.

[Disgirl]

Welcome to SD! I know you will enjoy being part of this great forum. Ask all the questions you can and read, read. Lots of us keep Koi too, me included. Nobody is going to laugh. They are fabulous fish! My tap water hardness is 250ppm, ph is 7.8, my discus thrive in the water.
Barb:)

[m.ingram]

You could always try a product from seachem called discus buffer its surposed to help with ph and water softness and gh .
I read about it on another site but never used it myself.

[rickztahone]

You could always try a product from seachem called discus buffer its surposed to help with ph and water softness and gh .
I read about it on another site but never used it myself.

i wouldn't mess with that buffer. it is a pain when you start trying to alter pH when there really isn't a need to do it.

[nc0gnet0]

i wouldn't mess with that buffer. it is a pain when you start trying to alter pH when there really isn't a need to do it.

While I agree that trying to chemically treat water to lower ph is virtually useless (considering my KH) are you saying that discus will be fine in a PH of 8.2?

[Eddie]

7.8 is about as high as I would go and thats just a personal preference. I have never really dealt with very hard water so I have been blessed but I think you will definitely benefit from using an RO unit.

Honestly, depending on your goals, this will be something that we may need a bit more information on. Are you looking to get adult discus or juvenile discus? You will need to think about the amount of water you will be changing, and how often. You also need to think about water storage options for creating a mix of RO/tap that would suffice for your needs. Plus you will have to think about all the plumbing involved, pumps to use, heating options, etc...etc...

I know zilch about RO units or set-ups that utilize them but there alot of people on here that are very knowledgeable about them.


Eddie

[nc0gnet0]

Honestly, depending on your goals, this will be something that we may need a bit more information on. Are you looking to get adult discus or juvenile discus? You will need to think about the amount of water you will be changing, and how often. You also need to think about water storage options for creating a mix of RO/tap that would suffice for your needs. Plus you will have to think about all the plumbing involved, pumps to use, heating options, etc...etc...

I am looking at getting adult discus, but as I do not have them yet this is still somewhat open. I don't plan on doing any additional plumbing, just the typicall 100 gallon tank with filter. Looking at using some pool sand and driftwood for decor, and possibly some live plants. I beleive I would set the RO unit up downstairs in the furnace room with a container to hold the water (perhaps a 55 gallon drum or two). This is the water I would use to do my water changes with. I understand RO units produce alot of waste water, this I would like to minimize as much as possible.


I know zilch about RO units or set-ups that utilize them but there alot of people on here that are very knowledgeable about them.

Hopefully some of the people will post, I will be out of town the next couple of days but will be back to check thursday. There is also a 200 gallon saltwater setup in my future, so the RO unit will get plenty of use.

[Eddie]

I don't plan on doing any additional plumbing, just the typicall 100 gallon tank with filter. I beleive I would set the RO unit up downstairs in the furnace room with a container to hold the water (perhaps a 55 gallon drum or two). This is the water I would use to do my water changes with. I understand RO units produce alot of waste water, this I would like to minimize as much as possible.



This is where the plumbing would come in, or even flexible tubing. You'll want to have a way of getting the water from the 55 gallon drums in the furnace room, to the tank. A good size pump will need to be used to move the water.

[exv152]

Now, I do run a water softner, in which I only use Morton Solar salt (no additives). This brings my GH down to nill verified by an api lquid test kit-one drop. this brings my salintiy up to .05%, which seems to be fine for discus...with such a high KH reading things like chems, peat, and driftwoods effect would be minimal at best.

Yes, with hard water like that it would take a lot of peat, chems etc. just to soften it. And, anytime you mess with the GH or the KH it doesn't make for sustainable longterm conditions. I agree with others here, the best way to go is an RO unit. A couple of large brand new garbage pales with wheels will do the trick, that way you can just role the pale out to the side of the aquarium and scoop the new water into the tank. Another option, and I have only read about this, never actually met anyone that has done it; is to have barrels setup outdoors to collect rain water (which is usually extremely soft). But, like I said, I have only read about this method so I am by no means an expert on it.

[nc0gnet0]

I am just going with the 55 gallon drums (2) the RODI unit is capable of 100 gallons a day, so this will give me the option to change 50% daily with plenty of room to spare. As for plumbing a strong submerable pump and garden hos will suffice ( I have spare pond pumps up to 3000 gallons an hour at 8" head height if I need them).

I did end up with a 90 gallon tank instead of the 100, so can I comfortably put 6 discus in that tank with perhaps a pleco without being crowded?

[rickztahone]

I am just going with the 55 gallon drums (2) the RODI unit is capable of 100 gallons a day, so this will give me the option to change 50% daily with plenty of room to spare. As for plumbing a strong submerable pump and garden hos will suffice ( I have spare pond pumps up to 3000 gallons an hour at 8" head height if I need them).

I did end up with a 90 gallon tank instead of the 100, so can I comfortably put 6 discus in that tank with perhaps a pleco without being crowded?

yes, that sounds like a perfect stocking load.

[Eddie]

yes, that sounds like a perfect stocking load.

+1

[Jhhnn]

Might experiment with peat, see what kind of results you get, particularly if you find the amber colored water attractive.

I used it years ago when soft acid water was considered necessary for discus. My water isn't nearly as hard as yours, but peat in a large homemade box filter, aged for a couple of days would soften and acidify it quite considerably. I used "pure canadian peat", the brown/black crumbly stuff, from my local hardware store. It comes in various sized inexpensive rectangular blocks. I kept it wet, in a covered 5gal bucket, changed it out every time I used the water. The amount of peat and the amount of time it's allowed to steep determines the results. The used peat went into the garden.

There's no waste water at all, and peat conditioned water doesn't bounce back like water treated with various buffering agents has a tendency to do. Might be worth a try in your situation.

[nc0gnet0]

A purchased an RODI system, so my water will be pure with a neutral 7.0 ph and 0 ppm disolved solids, gh and kh 0. Now, I recognize that this could lead to ph swings as the water will have no buffering capacity, but this can easlily be added by adding a small amount of my tap water back to the tank.

Chemicals never was an option for me, the water is jut way to hard a resistant to manipulation. As for peat, I opted for driftwood instead. I plan on a sand covered slightly planted display tank, and getting fish nearly mature. Should/When the fish pair up and want to spawn, I have a 55 gallon hex tank that I will leave just for that purpose and leave it BB.

[Scot]

10

[Roberacer]

Hey Everyone. New to your site. I've been keeping Discus for a while. I found your forum looking for info regarding a particular formulation of Peat (I will post the question separately). I read here some things that I have looked into and gotten some answers from some very informed folks about. Firstly, I was made to understand that "Discus Buffer" (A Seachem product) is actually phosphate. It lowers PH because it is in fact an acid and specifically effects General Hardness as opposed to Carbonate Hardness. These same good folks make another product which I also use called "Acid Buffer" which acutally effects the KH and not so much the GH. All of my tanks (3 actually) are planted. I keep my Discus in the 76 gallon tank but orginally had them in the 30 gallon tall. Algae has been my arch enemy really and the very reason for most of my research. In particular I have been battling red algae (AKA Black Beard) which kills my beloved plants. Don't get me wrong I addore my fish but I love my plants too and really hate algae killing them. Algae is an opportunistic organism and really only grows when it has an environment that encourages it. In the 30 gallon tall I have a moderately lit tank (2 bulbs HO T5 aquatic life freshwater bulb configuration). This tank is where I started using "Discus Buffer". After digging around for info trying to find out why the BB algae in that tank was being so prolific I found that it was probably a phosphate problem. I tested the water with an API kit that I bought and found that my phophates were off the scale. PH was sitting at 6.2 and the plants would reproduce well but the algae was growing faster than the plants. Lowering the phospate fixed that issue.
In the 76 gallon tank I had an issue with some kind of green algae with very thick filaments. It was something like stagehorn algae but grew in clumps. Once again very prolific and ate the plants. I called it green Shite and I hate it too. It totaly killed my Madagascar Lace plant before I got it under control. In that tank it is only about 4"deeper than the 30 and has 4 bulbs instead of 2. Once again Phospates were the problem but from a different source (food and the filter... long storey and another topic) as I used Acid buffer and blackwater expert (Kent) to deal with the PH/KH in that tank. BTW you should know that I have crypts in the tank and need to keep the water acid in order for them to live as their "blood" in the veins of the leaves becomes toxic to the plant when the water gets to neutral PH. Acid Buffer as you mentioned can be a problem too as it can lower your KH to the point where the plants will die so you can't just use that either. CO2 will lower the PH but not soften the water and won't do a thing for your PH if your water is not extremely soft. Sulferic acid (API-PH Down) wll lower the pretimuch no mater what the hardness is but won't soften the water.
Secondly. Water softener... Yikes. Firstly Discus water has the some of lowest naturally occuring levels of salenity in it found anywhere in the world. More than that if you ever want to keep plants in that... don't bother. Discus don't really have plants in their water naturally but they also don't like bright light and need to hide. Plants and bogwood make good hiding places and make the fish much more comfortable. Black Water, Eheim Torf Peat Pellets and Acid Buffer all soften water and in my case made the water stable in PH and KH but I couldn't seem to get rid of the phosphates untill I took out the Peat. Without the Peat Ph wouldn't stay below neutral without being dangerously low in KH so I supplemented with PH Down. Algae well under control with phosphate at about .25ppm. PH is at about 7.2. KH is around 1 degree but I am letting that slowly rise with water changes and forcing it down with sulferic acid (PH Down) using less Acid Buffer now too. Ideally it would sit around 2.5 or 3 to keep the plants healthy although they seem mostly ok now. Anyway what I am trying to say is that plants in proper parametered discus water is a very difficult combination and I have to say properly done likely every bit as expensive to maintain as a reef rig. In your case as your water is so hard I would start with Acid Buffer and use both Peat and Black water and get my water from before the water softener. RO would be a great asset to you but realise that you need much of the nutrients in the water that RO takes out so you have to find the right combination of RO and tap water (pre water softener) to be changing the water in your tank with.
Thirdly. Activated Carbon. The jury don't seem like they have come out of deliberation as to the safety of Activated Carbon although it has been linked to hole in the head disease. No-one really knows what causes that actually. You should know that depending on how it is manufactured activated carbon (AC) can be a huge source of phosphate in your tank. You should also know that it has a life span which is rather limited and after a time will leach the very toxins it was absorbing back into the water. You'd be far better off with something much more innert to keep your bacterial culture than that and if you like to used AC then do so but replace it monthly or something. Lifespan depends on a number of factors and some of those are specific to your environments. Sea Chem makes a product called Matrix which I remember being innert like that. Eheim also makes something which is as far as I can tell equally as good as do a number of other manufacturers.
Fourthly. Are you finding your HOB (overflow type filters) are able to keep up with the mess? All of my tanks have canisters on them and I am finding the 76 even though it has the biggest one (Marineland c-360) it is having trouble keeping up. A fair amount of particulate in the water still. In terms of media surface area the canisters are packed full and I use surface skimmers on the feed lines so the water is well aerated as well.