Ph 4.2!

[Rorie]

My PH in my discus/show tank is 4.2! I put in RO water which has a PH of 7.0....obviously.... after adding some discus minerals to it. I thought it may have been the CO2 lowering it. But my CO2 has been switched off for more than a month now. I did the usual of adding bicarb soda into the tank which raised the PH and KH, but this did not last long. SOmething in there is obviously lowering my PH a lot! Any ideas?

I added some crushed coral to my filter to try and even things out. But i have just had one of my 5 inch discus die a week after the coral went in. I cant seem to keep the parameters of this tank steady.... My Rams are stressed in the low PH. As soon as i bump up the PH they colour up and start spawning!

Suggestions?

 

[laura120381]

your discus will not be happy either at that ph. discus need soft, warm ACIDIC water. you should ideally be keeping the at a ph above 7. ideally discus are happy in a ph of around 8.2! fluctuations in ph and ammonia will kill your discus. also i would not recommend keeping rams and discus in the same tank. rams can be aggressive during breeding times and are not really peaceful enough for discus. discus like slow moving, peaceful, non-aggressive tank mates. hope that helps a wee bit!

i am not too sure how you would go about stabilising your ph as i have not had to do this before. i am sure one of the more experienced members will have some suggestions. i know you can buy treatments to raised/ lower ph but maybe another member may have a more natural method.

good luck

L

 

[Bignose]

discus need soft, warm ACIDIC water. you should ideally be keeping the at a ph above 7.

Laura, water with a pH below 7 is acidic.

 

[Erik]

It doesn't take much fo RO water to drop in pH. What's in your tank? Any driftwood? What is the TDS of your tap water? I'd start by cutting your RO water with tap water and doing more frequent water changes. The higher the TDS the greater the pH buffering. When using RO water you should have an accurate pH and TDS meter. Test kits are not accurate enough especially with the low parameters of RO in my opinion. What is the current TDS measurement of the tank?

 

[BigbruiserAl]

Gutted for you mate, you have had a run of bad luck with tank, post a pic of the tank mate lets see what in there

 

[Tizer]

You do tend to mess around with your water a lot!

 

[Aquamaniac]

your discus will not be happy either at that ph. discus need soft, warm ACIDIC water. you should ideally be keeping the at a ph above 7. ideally discus are happy in a ph of around 8.2! fluctuations in ph and ammonia will kill your discus. also i would not recommend keeping rams and discus in the same tank. rams can be aggressive during breeding times and are not really peaceful enough for discus. discus like slow moving, peaceful, non-aggressive tank mates. hope that helps a wee bit!

i am not too sure how you would go about stabilising your ph as i have not had to do this before. i am sure one of the more experienced members will have some suggestions. i know you can buy treatments to raised/ lower ph but maybe another member may have a more natural method.

good luck

L

I'm not a discus expert.
Its in my plans for the future to have discus one day. But i always heard that the discus like lower PH around 6,5. And are very demanding with the water quaity,and any changes in the water quality.
So i did a some research because PH 8.2 did not make sense unless every discus keeper i know were wrong.
Here is what i found:

pH
I do not recommend changing the pH as this is best left for someone with a background in chemistry. Discus that are tank bred usually do well in hard alkaline water too. Unless you acquire wild discus or the breeder or supplier’s water parameters are different from your local tap water, you may need to alter the pH. Even then small pH changes at a time, remember the pH scale is logarithmic, so a drop from 7 to 6 is actually reducing the pH by a factor of 10 and from 7 to 5 by 100.

Here is what the recommended pH is:
Display – 6.5 – 7.5
Breeding – 5.5 – 6.5
Growing On – 6.8 – 7.5

There is more information here if anyone wants to research.

Be carefull with advices regarding discus,they die or get sick quite easily and are quite expensive also.
As i said before i don't and never had discus so if anyone more experienced finds any mistakes in my answer feel free to correct me.

 

[laura120381]

hi there,

my apologies on the acidity thing! i was half asleep and got myself all mixed up! i found a website on the internet when i was researching discus that said they do well in ph up to 8.2. however, i used to keep them many years ago and the ph of my tank was 6.8.

i am usually very careful in any advice i give on this forum aquamaniac, especially regarding discus as, having kept them for nearly 8 years i am well aware of how fragile, picky and sensitive they can be...not to mention expensive. i rarely have any problems with ph which probably explains my faux pas earlier (apologies for that again). however, the rest of the advice given regarding tank mates still stands.

L

 

[Aquamaniac]

hi there,

my apologies on the acidity thing! i was half asleep and got myself all mixed up! i found a website on the internet when i was researching discus that said they do well in ph up to 8.2. however, i used to keep them many years ago and the ph of my tank was 6.8.

i am usually very careful in any advice i give on this forum aquamaniac, especially regarding discus as, having kept them for nearly 8 years i am well aware of how fragile, picky and sensitive they can be...not to mention expensive. i rarely have any problems with ph which probably explains my faux pas earlier (apologies for that again). however, the rest of the advice given regarding tank mates still stands.

L

Well i don't have experience with them. Most of what i know either is commom sense between fishkeepers,or friends that keep discus,or the internet.
And the internet is the real problem for us,while it is a powerfull tool for fish keeping and i use it quite often,there is also alot of wrong information in it.
It was not my intention to criticize your experience,my apologies. Just sometimes we find the wrong information when we google stuff.

 

[laura120381]

no probs m8!! you are right about the internet. its full of some great info...and some serious c**p!! no offense taken!! i should have woken up properly before attempting to give advice on ph!! lol

 

[Rorie]

Well, the one that died has always been quite heavily peppered since i got it about 8 months ago. All the others were fine throughout, spawning etc. My rams spawn and raise their fry too. So maybe it was just a long time coming for a sick fish...

I have noticed that my biggest discus has now taken over the whole tank! I think i will need to move him out, or get some competition into there as he's pushed the other two right to the back and they dont come out unless its feeding time! Maybe that didnt help!

RE my rams - they get on fine. When they spawn, they do so in a corner. And when the discus move close, they get pushed away. But the size of my discus means that they really couldnt care haha. They slowly just drift away from them!

BUT, i now realise that coral takes a while to work..... i was away for a week, came back, and everything appears to have settled down at a PH of 7 ish. So maybe that is it solved!

You do tend to mess around with your water a lot!

Well thats not particuarly helpful, nor is it correct. My water in my show tank went from tap water, to RO. Thats the only change its ever had! My breeding tanks are now RO, they were tap with a PH buffer before, but now are just RO. My water is very constant! Other than my show tank which has been experiancing low PH for a while now. So only recently have i tried to bring it back up.