RO, Diatoms, Plants and the truth about Discus.

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Pfisherman

Pfisherman

Candiru
MFK Member
Nov 1, 2006
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West Dundee, illinois
I am starting to look at discus and I am getting mixed info about them though, for real how hard can it really be? I will be doing a 6' tank, likely a 125 as they are pretty affordable compared to other sizes. So here is where the forum comes into play. I don't know much about my cities water supply, but I believe chlorine is added so I want to get an RO system, or is it RO DI? What about a diatom filter? are they comparable to RO, if not what do they do? a friend I used to know had one but only ran it weekly for polishing. This will be a planted community tank and the main filtration will be a pair of 400 gph biowheel HOB filters and an aquatop 500uv canister filter. I have a couple of months before I pull the trigger and will be studying for this project to do it right.
So give me some input folks.
I am not a noob to fish by any means, just want to do this discus stuff right the first time.
 
I just used tap water and did frequent water changes but I only had one discus :p

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If you don't know much (anything?) about your city's water then you'd probably better start by finding that out before expecting people to be able to provide you with answers. Also, there are discus and then there are discus. The wild ones are a whole lot more fussy when it comes to water requirements than captive bred ones. If you're going to use RO/DI water for your planted tank you will need to re-mineralise it to give the plants the nutrients they need. Start by reading this; http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/RO.htm

Rain water could be a cheaper option than RO if you have clean air and want low mineral content soft water, but first you probably should A; do some testing on your tap water to see what its like (you probably want to have nitrate/nitrite/ammonia/pH/GH/KH and TDS kits available if you're keeping discus anyway) and B; decide if you're going to keep wild or captive bred discus, as those two things may make this whole discussion unnecessary.
 
I have 8 discus, I use tap water and prime on big water changes if I do a little w/c I dont use any. Mainly do a WC once every 2-3 months but its a heavy planted tank. I found them quite easy to look after but one thing I would aim for is get bigger discus, little discus are shy and hide for the first few months which really annoyed me.
 
RO and DE are two completely different things. RO is incredibly fine filtration, so fine that is usually takes a day or so to filter a few gallons of water... so fine that is will filter out chlorine.

DE is a much courser filter medium when compared to RO. But DE is much finer filtration when compared to other aquarium mechanical filtration media. DE will capture the very small particles in the water that make it look hazy. Most other mechanical filtration media will not capture these small particles. DE also has a huge surface area compared to other mechanical filtration media. I have been running the same DE powder in my Hayward EC40 DE filter for over a year (See my signature for details). When I tried to run comparably fine filtration in BigBlue cartridge filters they only lasted a few hours before becoming clogged.

To sum it up: Use RO to filter the chlorine out of the water before it enters your tank. Use DE to filter out the very fine particles in your tank that other mechanical filtration methods tend to miss.
 
DE is Diatomaceous Earth. It is a dirt like powder made up of millions of dead skeletons from Diatoms. These tiny skeletons have tons of tiny pores in them. DE is most effective when used in a filter specially designed for use with DE. Purpose built DE filters have screens (or fingers in the Hayward EC line) that the DE powder coats. To coat the screens with DE powder you setup a flow through the filter with a normal pump. Then you sprinkle the DE powder into the submerged intake tube of the DE filter. The water carries the DE powder to the screens and coats them. The pores in the individual DE skeletons provide a massive surface area for filtration. The tank water flows through the DE skeletons and the DE pores trap the microscopic particles. Eventually when all the exposed DE skeleton pores are filled with trapped particles you can know the DE off the screens and allow it to recoat the screens exposing a new layer of DE skeletons. The only purpose built aquarium filter made for DE powder that I know of is the Vortex Diatom series of filter. A friend gave me one of these filters and it did an incredible job!

A couple of the negatives associated with the Vortex Diatom filters is 1) They are somewhat cumbersome to use. 2) They were not really made to run full time. 3) The motor they use isn't very efficient and gets kind of hot when running them for extended periods of time.

Despite it's short comings I loved the Vortex Diatom filter I had. But I wanted something that required less work and could run 24 x 7 indefinitely. I decided to gamble on the smallest DE filter I could find... the Hayward EC40. I have been running the DE filter on my tank for over a year and I am still using the first charge of DE powder. It has met my expectations for perfectly clear water but it has far surpassed my expectations in the absolutely minimal amount of maintenance it requires. You can find details of my setup in the thread link in my signature.

DE is used extensively for swimming pool filtration, industrial filtration and liquid filtration in food preparation (such as filtering out the yeast in wine to provide a clear liquid without altering the taste of the wine).
 
You sure you're not getting a backhander from them? Your DE filter has nothing to do with the topic at hand. RO/DI = Reverse Osmosis/De-Ionising, the OP is asking about whether it is necessary to use such a filter to reduce the mineral content of his tap water before adding it to his tank so he can keep discus, not what he should use to filter his tank.
 
David R said:
You sure you're not getting a backhander from them? Your DE filter has nothing to do with the topic at hand. RO/DI = Reverse Osmosis/De-Ionising, the OP is asking about whether it is necessary to use such a filter to reduce the mineral content of his tap water before adding it to his tank so he can keep discus, not what he should use to filter his tank.
Click to expand...

Nope, no kick backs. I thought the original post asked "What about a diatom filter?". And the original poster seemed to have some confusion about the use of a RO filter vs the use of a DE filter. "are they comparable to RO, if not what do they do?"


Edit: Maybe there was some confusion because I started discussing DE filters and DE is a Acronym for Diatomaceous Earth. And a Diatom Filter is a brand of Diatomaceous Earth filter. I hate it when people start throwing around Acronyms and expect everyone to know what they are talking about. In this case I am guilty as charged! Honestly, I can't spell "Diatomaceous" without looking it up or looking at my own signature! ;)
 
You are right, I did not know if they were interchangeable.

Here is what I found out today, the water out of my tap has a PH of around 8 and is loaded with chlorine to rid the water of radon. To me that doesn't make sense but thats what the folks at the pool store told me. They sell RO units there that I feel are tremendously over priced, 18.6gpd for $375. They also sell water that is filtered through RO for $0.35 a gal, the specs on that are Chlorine - 0, Alkaline - 80, TDS 8, and Ph 6.8.

Would that suffice for Discus? I think that in the long run it would be better to invest in the filter system.

I dont understand the whole waste water thing with the RO unit though, what is that about?
 
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