RO water for Discus - Yes or No?

Arkangel77

Arkangel77

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Aug 13, 2006
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I am getting a lot of different info on this one. All of the breaders I have talked to tell me not to mess with RO. They say Tap is more stable and once the fish are aclimated to it there is no problem with keeping them in tap at all. My tap here is not that bad. (The only exceptions is for hatching eggs which I wont be doing). However a lot of what I read says low PH is best for discus and RO water is great. It is true that the fish we keep now are not like the ones captured and kept 20years ago, think about it they have bin tank raised for generatons (mostly). SO what do you guys think? I am looking for your Thought's on this and your experiances. Thanks, Arkangel77
 
What exactly is your tap water ph? Wild discus need very soft, low ph water. Domestic/farm raised imports do not. I use conditioned tap water ph 7.6-7.8 and keep discus without issues, including hatching eggs.
 
My Tap is right at 8.0 I have an RO unit but it seems like it was a wast? The local breader I spoke with today said RO water is more prone to PH fluctuations and that he would recomend using tap. He is not the first breader that told me this and its bin making me wonder if there was any point to the RO unit? It seems like the RO was not needed after all?
 
YEP that was what CHuck was telling me erlier today. I thought I was doing a good thing with the RO but it seems like it was not needed after all?
 
The only time RO units are needed is in reef tanks, in areas that have horrible water

I use my tap water in my reef tank as well.. but I have pristine tap water
 
Arkangel77 said:
YEP that was what CHuck was telling me erlier today. I thought I was doing a good thing with the RO but it seems like it was not needed after all?
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People tend to over exaggerate the importance of water chemistry when the reality is, fish can adapt very well to different types of water and captive bred strains are much hardier than the wild counterparts.

RO water works great for top offs ;)
 
And fish can adapt to a ph that's different than what they were raised in. What they can't tolerate is varying ph swings.
 
pinkertd said:
And fish can adapt to a ph that'sdifferent than what they were raised in. What they can't tolerate is varying ph swings.
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Well, sort of... pH swings are ok within a range (generally 6-9) as seen in many planted tanks with injected Co2 that may drop and then rise pH within 24 hours. However, certain physiological processes will fail at the extremes.
 
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