hard water

[blackhawkpowers]

Hey guys, my tap water is relatively hard and generally has a ph of 7.5 - 7.8, I'm trying to figure out the best way to soften my water before changing to a discus tank. Is the general consensus to use a reverse osmosis filter? If so are you using it just for water changes and where is a good location to purchase one?

 

[nolapete]

RO/DI

Amphiprion on AC recommended these to me.

There are plenty of great units out there. I personally use a Typhoon III 5-stage 75 gpd from AirWaterIce.com. Other great units are Ocean Reef +1, 5 stage 75 gpd from thefilterguys.biz; the Optima series (like the Optima Professional) from purelyh20.com; and the units from melevsreef.com. All of those are my first choices for the RO/DI unit configurations. All of these run ~170-210 dollars. Some extras I recommend (note that most of the above units come with these) is a dual TDS meter and a pressure gauge. These will allow you to see if your prefilters are clogged and to determine if your membrane or your resin is going bad. Other things you will want are an automatic shutoff valve and float valve to keep things from flooding--these are also necessary for certain automatic top-off configurations.

Also, check out www.buckeyefieldsupply.com.

 

[Lupin]

I do not believe you need to go through all the tedious process to achieve the water conditions you want. Why not obtain discus from your local breeder? They may be kept in the same water conditions that you have.

 

[Gordon C. Snelling]

Unless you are going to go with wild discus you really do not need to fuss with you water all that much. Todays "domestic" discus are generally pretty tolerant of water conditions. That said 7.5-7.8 is a little higher than I would like to see and if it were me I would probably bring it down some with the use of R/O water.

 

[TwistedPenguin]

They'll be fine without changing your water. I've had my 4 Discus 7-8 months in water that's harder than yours and they're doing wonderful. Eat everything in sight and growing like crazy.

 

[jhutch]

They'll be fine without changing your water. I've had my 4 Discus 7-8 months in water that's harder than yours and they're doing wonderful. Eat everything in sight and growing like crazy.

I agree. My water was aound 8.0 out of the tap and my discus were spawning and everything. The spawns hadn't yeilded any fry though. With the discus, in my opinion, stability of your water parameters is more important than a low pH.