Hard Water To Soft Water

[Spank]

Hello everyone

Living in the southeast of England (London specifically) means that the water that come from the taps is hard and has a pH of roughly 7.5-8. I've just bought a new tank and want to setup a south american community/discus tank (neons, apisto's, discus etc) What's the best method to soften up the water?

There's a built in water softener in the house but this doesn't help a huge amount and the water hardness fluctuates depending on whether we remember to add softener salt or not.
I'm planning for plants in the tank as well and so have bought the necessery componants to inject a constant supply of CO2 (from cylinder not natural) will this be enough to lower pH and reduce hardness?
I've read peat goes a long way to reduce hardness and pH and have considered adding it as one of the filter medias. Is this as easy as it sounds? how often does the peat need replacing, where can I get it from and how much do I need for a 120 Gl tank?
And of course, there's also RO water, does this actually help soften the water or just purify it? and how often do membranes need replacing?

Thanks lots for the help

Hank

 

[Liam]

RO water is the best bet, it basically removes 99% of the solids in the water that cause hardness and ph of our London water. You need to add back some hardness to get the water stable and have some mineral content for the fish. The water softener makes the water unsuitable for fish, I am pretty sure. You would need to use your drinking water for the fish if you don’t use R0. A one-point drop in ph can be achieved with the CO2 but that in itself makes very little difference to the fish, the amount of dissolved solids is more the issue for the fish. Yes peat does soften the water, moss peat is the best, it’s not easy to get consistent results using this and you get tea coloured water, which the fish like but you may not, if you want to keep discus they need pretty stable conditions.
The neons tend to be a bit small to put with the discus, they can get eaten, cardinals grow bigger and like the high temperatures the discus require.