ro water

[fish_e_o]

who out there uses ro water? I was considering buying a unit for my discus, they breed in my water and it's hard! like 200 ppm is it worth it? all the fins look good no excess slime not stressed and growing great. Also what would i use for remineralization(if thats a word) just add in some tap water?

[Z Man]

Your water is very hard if it is 200ppm TDS. Do you have well water or municipal water supply? It makes a difference when purchasing an RO unit. I use a TDS ppm electronic meter to adjust my water for soft water fishes. But simply if you would use 1/2 RO water and 1/2 tap water would would then have a 100ppm TDS Discus really need lower than that so I would use 75% RO with your hard 200ppm water. That should give you about 50ppm which would be better for your Discus. You do not have to adjust the water very slowly and you could do it over just a few water changes. A 25% change a few times would do the trick. BTW, I have never used and additives and I breed a lot of Apistogrammas and other soft water fishes now and Discus a few years back.

[scott]

I used to use straight RO water and it ended up in a horrible case of bioacidification. My ph dropped from 6.8 to five in a day. I did twenty percent water changes weekly on the tank which isn't great maintenance but it isn't horrible either (I now just use tap and do forty weekly). The KH of RO is so low that is to much waste builds up your buffer will fail and your ph will plummet. I would not recommend using straight RO water, that is just my experience. I would go with the 75/25 mix.

I have also read that RO water does not have the electrolytes necessary for proper gill and organ function which can lead to a shortened life span.

[fish_e_o]

it's a municipal water supply but i use peat to soften water and it goes down to about 100ppm -120ppm (i guess i forgot to mention that).

[125gJoe]

I use Kent's R/O Right as an additive to make the R/O water "safe" for the fish.

I got my R/O system from: Aqua FX (http://www.aquariumwaterfilters.com/)