Discus Questions

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TrainRek77

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Jan 6, 2012
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North Alabama
I want to start a discus tank. I've been doing as much research as I can. I've read they like tall tanks so I found a great deal on a 125 gallon 4 foot tank. I think it will be suitable for quite a few fish. I'm worried about my water parameters though. I have a ph of 7.6. I know that is quite high for discus. I purchased a GH and kh test kit to see how hard my water is and no matter how many drops I put in, the sample never turns green. My KH is 71.6 ppm. Is it possible that my water is "off the charts" hard? Does anyone keep discus who's water tests are similar to mine? Is an RO unit required for me to lower my PH to a proper PH for discus?

From what I understand, in order to lower my PH I must first lower the hardness of my water. I am not opposed to buying whatever I need to create a habitable environment for discus.

Thanks for the help everyone! This forum always gives me great advice.
 
People can and do keep discus in all manner of water conditions. What you would be best doing is finding the place that you want to buy from and matching the conditions that they keep their discus in.

I have similar problems to you but also have unbelievably poor quality water. I chose to use RO because my water is so bad. If you decide that you want to do this then remember that you can't just use pure RO as it lacks minerals that are required by the fish. This can be combated in two ways - either mix a little tap water back in to the RO (you will have to get a TDS meter and play with the ratios) or put the mineral back using chemical like RO Right/Remineral. My water is so bad I can't use the tap water method as it makes my nitrAtes go off the chart!
 
Thank you for the information about re-mineralizing my water. I would have been completely ignorant about that without your help.

My water quality, other than hardness, does not seem to be too poor. I believe I may have a high content of silica. Diatoms tend to plague my tank. I've been looking at RO filters. I understand how they work, well enough, and how to plumb them. What confuses me a little is how to do water changes. It seems that if a unit makes around 50 gallons a day, then maintenance must be time consuming. The holding tanks sold with them seem to be around 3 gallons. That just doesn't seem big enough for my tank.
 
On my RO units I don't use those holding tanks.

What I've done is a bit of a complicated thing, but it works wonders, and I waste literally no water.

The water is drawn from the toilet flush reservoir, pulled with a booster pump and goes to the filter. The filtered water is accumulated in four 25 litre water butts that are connected through taps, and easily diconnectable. The waste water is returned to the toilet flush reservoir.

As the water lowers in the flush reservoir it is refilled automatically by the internal mechanism, and the mineral content in the water never gets past a certain level because the toilet is regularly used.

To make sure it's not running for too long when people might not use the flush (work hours or at night) I have the booster pump on a timer.

It works wonders, and I have eliminated what I think is the worst drawback of RO units: the enormous waste of water.

I call this the Passante system, from the person who suggested it.
 
Don't use the fiddly little tanks that they sell as part of the system.

I just have a big water butt in the garage.
 

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