Meet Tic and Toc, my discus!
- Thread starter Maj0rFiSh
- Start date
Yea, temp could play a role in this.... they need around 84-90 degrees farenheit, a temp in which most fish would die.
Oddball~ said:
Some people keep them in mid 70's water, in fact a breeder told me they keep them at high temps just to ward of disease.
Mine are at 80-82 and doing fine.Major you know that the ph must be SLOWLY altered right? A PH drop can kill them easily.
A pH of 8.0 is indeed too high for discus. However, without knowing your GH and KH, you have no way of knowing what method you need to employ in order to lower the pH of your tank. Strongly buffered water, when treated with something like blackwater extract, will see a temporary pH drop, but then it will bounce right back up, especially if you are doing the frequent large water changes that keeping discus requires. And this will harm your discus just as much (if not more) than a steady, high pH.
Also, with discus, the temperature should be at least 80.
So what are the other parameters in your tank?
Also, with discus, the temperature should be at least 80.
So what are the other parameters in your tank?
Well they are kept at 82-84F, and i brought a R/O Unit and it wil be installed wednesday, i have been using blackwater to get it down temperarily until i have the RO going, where ill have a 50/50 mix between RO and normal conditioned water...
I only have test kits for nitItes and PH
I only have test kits for nitItes and PH
Discus only need low pH for spawning. They can grow out in medium hard water with pH in the high 7's (or higher!)
Adding ro water is fine, if there is sufficient buffering and done correctly. Steady pH is most important. pH swings will kill discus.
Adding ro water is fine, if there is sufficient buffering and done correctly. Steady pH is most important. pH swings will kill discus.
Flagfish said:
I will be doing 50/50 ro water and conditioned water, every time i do a water change it will be 10 litres of one and 10 litres of another...or maybe 20 of both...
I dont know till wednesday as it will be full installed then...ill mix 10 litres (2 gallons approx) of both and post the ph, is that ok?
No. If you are going to start fiddling around with your water chemistry, you will need to know your GH and KH as well as your pH. There are test kits out there that are inexpensive and will let you measure all of your water's relevant parameters. If you remove too much buffering capacity with your R/O water you will eventually kill your fish through wide swings in the pH brought on by too little KH. If you are going to try and keep discus, you should definitely spend the additional money for a comprehensive test kit (over here the Tetra kit goes for around $15). A reasonable book on water chemistry would also not be out of place.
