Wondering?

[Bud Smith]

I read that alot of you do water changes using straight tap water with prime or safe added
I am curious - what is the ph and hardness of your tap water?
My tap water ph 8.9 - hardness 380 to 400 ppm

[Second Hand Pat]

Hey Bud, You will find some folks can do WCs from the tap and some have to age their water. I have to age my water at least 4 hours. Ph from tap is 7.4, after aging 8.2. My hardness is about 179 ppm. Pat

[strawberryblonde]

I'm one of those who can use straight tap. My pH is around 8.0 - 8.2 and only falls to 7.6 after sitting in my fish tank for a week, which it never does with my discus. My hardness is very low (which surprises me considering my pH) if I'm reading the tests correctly.

The way to know if you can use tap is to place it in a bucket with aeration overnight and test it at the 24 hour and 48 hour mark. Mine doesn't change at the 24 hour mark and only drop about .2 after 48 hours, so it's safe to use as is with Prime added.

[Bud Smith]

The reason I ask is my ro/di unit is older and Iam thinking about replacing it - if I increase the ph gradually by using less ro/di in my storage tank I am thinking I can raise the ph to 7.8 and maybe eliminate the use of mixing tap water for my storage tank - I will run storage water for 2 days with aeration -activated carbon and heat to tank temp - I have adult discus - no juvies and not interested in breeding at this time
What is the highest ph and hardness do you think some one can keep adult discus consistenly?

[Skip]

i haven't tested ph in months.. last i checked it was 8.2..

[flyman767]

What is the highest ph and hardness do you think some one can keep adult discus consistenly?

Before I switched to a mix of tap/ro.. I used straight tap and my Ph was 9.5(hardness ran about 16 grains). I switched to a 50/50 because the hard water ran havoc on my heaters(major calcification); however, the health of the discus was never an issue.

I've followed many high Ph threads on this site as well as a few others for quite some time. There have been a few like mine with a Ph north of 9.0+.. and in all cases the discus seem to acclimate just fine.

The number is just that...a number, but rather what is important is to maintain consistent conditions throughout.

[Bud Smith]

Agreed Flyman - the consistent conditions are very important - I will gradually increase ph and watch hardness and see how they do
I never realized discus do well with a ph of 9