freshwater

[chatfouz]

anyone have suggestions on how to deal with ph and hardness in freshwater?

i need to lower the ph to 6

and greatly lower the hardness

if i remember correctly driftwood helps lower ph

avoid reef sand for hardness

anyone recommend chemicals to deal with the rest?

or are there other "objects" that can be put in a tank to help regulate the ph and hardness?

are there rocks that lower hardness? i know limestone etc raise it...

or is the only option really jsut to buy water?

[Robb in Austin]

The driftwood will lower it some, I don't see much difference pH wise between my tanks with and without.

Unless you are breeding discus or someother black/super soft water species I think it is better to just keep

them in stable parameters vs some ideal numbers.

Check on the Hill Country Cichlid Club site: hillcountrycichlidclub.com

Robb

[chatfouz]

The driftwood will lower it some, I don't see much difference pH wise between my tanks with and without.

Unless you are breeding discus or someother black/super soft water species I think it is better to just keep

them in stable parameters vs some ideal numbers.

Check on the Hill Country Cichlid Club site: hillcountrycichlidclub.com

Robb

i thought discus was one of those black water soft species that did need the low parameters. or is that just with those who want to breed them? i just want to them to swim around and not die.

[Robb in Austin]

Speaking strictly from reading about them, never owned discus, I think you can keep them in plain ole tap water

but they need very clean water. From what I've read the people that keep them do regular(daily to every other day)

water changes.

There are some species whose egs will not fertilize in basic water.

Robb