Discus And Kh

[Craig100]

Hello there;
I'm in the process of setting up a Discus tank, I have a RO unit - producing RO water with a pH of 6.4(great). I have a power by Seachem, called equilibrium, that I use to replace the essential minerals etc required. The same powder is used to increase the gH of the water...which I am setting to around 3dH. All of this is great and works out fine however...I cannot find a way to increase the KH of the water, to ensure my pH remains stable, without it increasing the pH. I tried a powder "salifert" but this is designed for marines and increased the pH to 8.x, which wasn't really any use.

My question is - "is there a way to increase the KH of the water without adjusting the pH?".

my intention is to stay away from pH buffers etc. I am setting this water up to be the same as my 'localish' Discus supplier, so require the water to be very soft and acidic. The supplier tells me that all they use is equilibrium, and 'discus buffer', I don't need the discus buffer since this is for setting the pH...while I already have my desired pH straight out of the RO unit. I just would like to feel more secure with a value of at least 3/4 KH to stabilize the pH.

While browsing the forums, I have seen people with discus tanks spec'd with the parameters I want, I just don't see a way to achieve it without messing with the pH seriously.
Any help would be appreciated,
Cheers
Craig.

 

[angelmouse]

i just add some tapwater to my r/o to get the right parameters, iuse 80% r/o and 20% tap and i dont add anything else. it does bring the ph up abit, mine is about 7.2 which is ok. it is better than using aditives imo
regards angel

 

[Craig100]

Hey angelmouse;
That does sound a better idea; I take it when getting discus, it would be a case of acclimatising them even more slowly to the higher pH, the supplier I am going to has some tanks at pH 5.6/5.8. So it would be a case of RO water + dechlorinated tap(is there anything else that needs done to the tap water?)

Cheers
Craig.