discus tank water parameters what is going on with my tank.

[fishyjoe26]

Dude,

Hwo do you have high PH reading and Low PH reading ? Ph is Ph..

How often are you doing water changes now ? what's your temp ?

stan

50% once every weekend. 2-250 watt eheim jebo jagers
with both set on 84f% with the old one starting to moalfunkshion(i can't spell)
I can tape the old one and I can see a little blueish/redish thing go off and on and the orange off/on led will go off and on. the new one I just put in a week ago is perfect,nothing wrongs. the temp with both of them set at 84 with both of them on are 84.3 is the messed up one,messing with the water.

 

[estrump]

Your tank is cycled or you would have ammonia, that's the good news. You've got too many nitrates so you need to do a substantial water change. I breed discus and regularly change 30-50% daily using RO water matched for temperature, pH and hardness (RO right) with absolutely no issues. You will need to add back some benefical bacterial (Stability or Cycle, for example). Do not use tap water for big water changes! BTW - doing several small changes won't get the job done. Cut back (or eliminate) the beef heart b/c it constipates the discus, esp. blue diamonds, and fouls the water causing high nitrates. Discard the high pH test kit use only the low pH test. Your low test pH of 6.4-6.6 is just what discus need. If the API ammonia test is anything other than yellow after 5 minutes, you've got big problems with insufficient nitrification the most likely cause.

 

[fishyjoe26]

Your tank is cycled or you would have ammonia, that's the good news. You've got too many nitrates so you need to do a substantial water change. I breed discus and regularly change 30-50% daily using RO water matched for temperature, pH and hardness (RO right) with absolutely no issues. You will need to add back some benefical bacterial (Stability or Cycle, for example). Do not use tap water for big water changes! BTW - doing several small changes won't get the job done. Cut back (or eliminate) the beef heart b/c it constipates the discus, esp. blue diamonds, and fouls the water causing high nitrates. Discard the high pH test kit use only the low pH test. Your low test pH of 6.4-6.6 is just what discus need. If the API ammonia test is anything other than yellow after 5 minutes, you've got big problems with insufficient nitrification the most likely cause.

thank you thank you thank you. the tank is cycled. what I did is I had a 225 gallon tank with a fx5 on it, I got the 135. got it in to place, bought need gravel and cleaned it with tap. then I let it dry then I put it in the tank,and siphoned water from the 225 in to it, and the rest that I couldn't siphon I left in the 225. I finished filling the 135 up with new tap water and dechlornated it with prime. the took the fx5 off the 225 and hooked it up to the 135. I had silver dollars,and some other fish in the 135. then I sold the silver dollars and other fish, and did a 50 procent water change and got ready for the discus. I also siphoned the gravel well do the 50% water change. put the discus they where healthy, now every now then after feeding bloodworms,beefheart,and brime shrip. the will come to the top every now and then, and there top fins will go down. then once I do a water change of 50% and add prime,and some tetra black water extract they seem healthy and happy again and everything is back to normal.

do you see any problems with that? so how much water should I be changing each day? every other day? every week? etc etc?
should I take out the gravel one guy said I might have prototozoal.
but they are still eatting. the asian breeder I bought the discus from said I need to feed 1 cube each of each food to every two fish, two times aday.
I got 11 discus that are 4.0-4.5 inches from head to end of tail, and 2 that are 3.0 from head to end of tail.

is aged dechloranated tap water ok?

 

[Mr Pleco]

thanks read above I shaked all the bottles for one min. and then shaked the test test tubes for 1 min, then let them sit. here are the readings.

ok now I retested it.
nitrate 60-80.
nitrite 0.0
high ph 7.2-7.4
low ph 6.4-6.6
ammonia 0.0

so according to those reading I should do a water change, 25% procent- maybe 50%procent?

Why are you taking and getting two different PH readings?
What's your PH out of the tap?

 

[fishyjoe26]

Why are you taking and getting two different PH readings?What's your PH out of the tap?

i'm not sure I tested the water, tank water in a tube with the low ph liquid and got that low ph reading. then I took some tank water put it in a test tube and used the high ph liquid and got that reading. tap water ph=
7.4-7.6

 

[TwistedPenguin]

The API test kit comes with pH tests for hard water and for soft water. That's why he's got 2 pH tests. They both max out at a certain color so if you have water on the harder side just use the high pH test, pH almost never matters anyway.

 

[fishyjoe26]

The API test kit comes with pH tests for hard water and for soft water. That's why he's got 2 pH tests. They both max out at a certain color so if you have water on the harder side just use the high pH test, pH almost never matters anyway.

thanks twisted, well I did the water change(50-75%)__ and i'm monitering it
and it seems to be getting better. more of the discus are staying together,
showing more of there true color, and seem a lot more happy I also turned the temp up on the heaters. they where set at 85 and the temp. was reading 82,
now that I turned the heaters up to 89, it's reading 86, I think my heaters are with in 1-2 + or -.