Natural Or Man Made?

[elmo666]

As a keen discus keeper, and if truth be known a constant tinkerer, I'm yet again pondering what's best. You see, I know all my fish are imported, captive bred and as such I don't have a clue what parameters they've been bred or reared in. Then off they go to wholesale, different water again, same story with the retailer and then into my biotope.
So, what's best for them. A "natural" environment would mean soft, acidic water, probably filtered through peat and maybe making use of Blackwater extract. Or, as I did up until 3 weeks ago, r/o corrected with pro discus mineral and ph adjustment with acid. Now simplified it a little by using just an hma filter and adjusting ph to match the tank.
So, natural or man made, so to speak.....do the fish really know what they're in??
Incidentally, out of my 6 discus, 4 have paired up, 1 pair regularly spawn.

 

[Baccus]

While your fish are happy and healthy I would stick to what your doing.
Ideally we would all keep fish in the conditions as close as possible to their natural environment, but the reality is many fish are generations distant to thier still wild counter parts. These captive bred fish, survived and bred in their less than natural environments (survival of the fittest in action), and their offspring are thus that bit more able to survive conditions less like their wild relatives.

 

[elmo666]

Very true Baccus. I'm contemplating changes as I think in my attempt to create the "perfect", stable environment for my fish I may have gone a little over the top. I run twin eheim pro 350's, both with purigen in. I have a canister of seachem denitrate fed by a tunze pump, a surface skimmer, eheim uv and carry out 2 water changes each week, 75ltrs each time. Then there's the plants. Pressurised co2, nutrasoil aquagro substrate with regular ferts and iron. In short, a lot of work on a must do basis. A very "man made" set up. I'd like to simplify things and in doing so let a more natural feel come to the tank to increase my enjoyment. I can recall the early days of bubble up box filters and under gravel filters.......things went just fine lol.

 

[Baccus]

If you want to change your regeme for ease and less stressful fish keeping, I would do it on a very gradual basis, keeping an eye on any distress shown by the fish to the changes, and be ready to change it back to something they are used to.
I keep guppies which should be a hard or hardish water fish, mine have been in my local water now for so many years that if they are put into "ideal" water hardness conditions they sicken and die. So much so that my local pet shop keeps a " soft water" guppy tank kept aside for the fish I bring in, well away from the farm bred fish which have live bearer salts added to their tank.

 

[elmo666]

Good advice, appreciated. So far I've only moved away from ro in favour of hma filtered water, this was done over 3 weeks. I'm matching the ph at the moment as I know my co2 holds down the ph during the photo cycle (9 in my tank, timed). That said, I am going to let the gh/kh increase and hopefully bring my ph up from 6.2 to closer to neutral, this I'll do over several weeks. The lack of minerals and no buffering capacity, along with the 4 hr draw off time was the main reason for moving away from ro. There was, as you say above,a lack of ease and cost to rectified water, adding expensive minerals back to water that in all honesty my fish would be fine in anyway. So, when the ph is where I want it, and the fish are happy, I may drop the purigen, add peat to my filters and see where it all balances out to.........carefully of course

 

[Baccus]

Keep us up to date on how the new routine works for you and how well the fish adapt and adjust.
Who knows taking the water back to a more "black water" type may get your discus if not showing better colour and health may also get them spawning.