Will a tap water filter make it possible to keep discus?

[JenNewbie]

I have a Water Pik filter on my kitchen sink for human/animal use, but I was looking at the water filters available online at PetsMart, etc. and they claim you can adjust the pH and hardness of tap water? How safe is it, since I assume you have to adjust those values w/ chemicals? Is that a valid claim, or should I just resign myself to keeping hard water fish? Just hoping....

 

[BrianNY]

As a discus keeper Jen, I battled the reverse of what you have. I've very, very soft water. I think you can use your tap water and bring the pH down using peat. The good news is your water is probably suffieciently buffered to avoid the problem pH swings that I've had.

Discus are very adaptable to pH and KH. It's the swings that stress them out. The side note here is that if you want to spawn discus, you have to really soften the water. Not because the discus like it but because hard water hardens the eggs shell and doesn't let the sperm penetrate.

HTH