Setting up water for discus

[AdamsAquarium]

I'm using mostly RO water with about 20% tap water mixture. I've got my water parameters set to:

Ph 6.5
Alkalinity 20-40ppm
Hardness 50ppm

What I am afraid of, is my alkalinity might be low? So far, all of my fish are doing well. I'm not sure if the alkalinity is ideal for discus? Or do I need a buffer?

Thanks

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[Rpeinhardt]

Not a discus owner (yet) but that alkalinity seems low to me. How are you buffering your water?

I'm a huge fan of crushed coral. Roughly a half to two thirds of a cup has given me about 6 degrees of carbonate hardness which I think is a little over 100 ppm.

I particularly like it because it automatically buffers my water and I don't have to remember to add baking soda or some other branded buffering agent.

 

[Gillie]

Unless you plan on breeding, there's no reason to mess with the water. Proper acclimation and maintenance is all you really need.

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[AdamsAquarium]

I'm not buffering the water. Just strictly going about 80% RO and 20% tap. Probably more of an 85% 15% ratio. but no buffers involved.

I'm not trying to breed discus, (they are young), but I want them in ideal conditions. Tap water here is at 8.4ph, over 150pph hardness. It's rough tap water, so I wanted to make it where the discus can live in ideal conditions.

As I realize the alkalinity probably won't harm the discus bit I wanted to make sure it wasn't too low that the discus might be stressed out over it.

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[Gillie]

I wouldn't worry about the hardness being too low, you'd never be able to lower it enough to stress them without using strong acids. In the wild they've been found in water with a ph of 3 which is the same as lemon juice.

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[candymancan]

Discus don't really care what water you have... Unless they are wild caught... You know discus hans ? In Baltimore.. uses tap water for all his discus, and the water we have here in Maryland and VA is extremely hard and really high in PH Our ph is about 8.0 almost.. and the hardness last I checked was around 150 . My discus I use tap water, run a line from the sink directly in the tank.. toss 2-3 caps of prime as its filling up and call it a day and I haven't had one croak on me