water problems

[tasos papadopoulos]

iam from europe and the water we have here is 9.0 ph i put 3 bottles of ph minus and it is at 8.0 ph now..
i check the distilled water i have here and it is at 6.5ph !!
so the question is: the distilled water its good for discus fish or it will cause them problems???
thanks for your time:)

[plecocicho]

I presume you are from Greece? If so you must have very high gh and kh, liquid rock so to speak. Ph 9 is IMHo is only suitable for tanganyka cichlids or some Apahnius, not for discus. In order to lower your ph you must mix your tap water with some soft water, You have this options:
a)the simplest way is a reverse osmosis unit. Water consumption is quite high, but you could connect two units and maybe a booster pump btween them so you could have 2:4 for ro water ratio
b) use of special resins, which lower both kh and gh and also nitrats. You must reactivate them with 3-4 percent hcl (for mg, ca) and NaOH (for carbonates and nitrate) solution. So handling with strong base and acids could be problematic
c) use of rainwater if you are not near a highway or a factory, Ac carbon is a must.Cheap solution, but could be very problematic or uuseful during summer moths
d) build a peat bomb. use baltic white peat only. Downsize of this method is, that it colours a water into brown.

[Poco]

Have you tired aging water? Use a water barrel with airstone connected to a pump. monitor it after 24hrs and see if pH has changed.

You can also you phosphoric acid (food safe) in the barrel to lower pH. Water will need to be aged for two days as buffers will raise the pH. So lets say if you lower it to 6.00 after 24hrs it might rise up to 6.6 and after 48hrs 6.9. Mind you these are just estimates your water might react differently and the bounce back can be higher.

Reverse Osmosis is the easiest way but water consumption will be higher.

HTH

[tasos papadopoulos]

thanks for the quick answers i buy an r/o unit and try whith that first and then i will put some ph minus:) i think that will be ok...
thanks!!