Reverse Osmosis or similar

[Ali Day]

Hi,
I'm looking at trying to soften the water I have now 12 - 15 dh to something
around the 5 - 6 level after the death of one of my discus the other week.

I've been in my house about about 8 months and haven't set up a dedicated
tap etc yet, but I just attach a hose to the bath and fill the tank direct.

I was looking at a reverse osmosis units, but can only find units that do
100 gals per day, is it possible to attach anything like this direct to the
tap so I can fill the tank? I do 20% changes every 10 days or so, which
makes about 35 gallon change at a time.

Anyone who has experience or knows any good reading, let me know or send me
an e-mail.

Cheers

A

[Margolis]

No, you don't want to put pure ro water in the tank. You will want to get
something like a rubbermaid trash can and run the ro water into that and
then mix either some tap water to get the hardness you want or use something
like seachem's equilibrium added to the ro water to remineralize it. You
will also need some baking soda to increase the kh if you go the equilibrium
route. You also should heat the water to a temp close to the tank temp
since you have discus and they can be very fragile.

and you should probably increase that water change schedule. More water
changed and more frequently. A lot of discus keepers do 50-100% changes
every day. I do 50% changes once a week.

btw, where do you live?

--

Margolis
http://web.archive.org/web/20030215212142/http://www.agqx.org/faqs/AGQ2FAQ.htm
http://www.unrealtower.org/faq

[Ali Day]

"Margolis" > wrote in message
...
> No, you don't want to put pure ro water in the tank. You will want to get
> something like a rubbermaid trash can and run the ro water into that and
> then mix either some tap water to get the hardness you want or use
something
> like seachem's equilibrium added to the ro water to remineralize it. You
> will also need some baking soda to increase the kh if you go the
equilibrium
> route. You also should heat the water to a temp close to the tank temp
> since you have discus and they can be very fragile.

I was thinking of attaching the RO unit to one tap (hot or cold) whilst the
other was supply water to obtain the mixture, just an idea oh well. My
problem is I am a bit lazy and that to do large water changes in my tank 160
gals would mean one or more bins in the living room and whilst my other half
enjoys the aquarium would not allow me to drag half full bins of water
through the house. I've had discus for around three years and filled direct
from the tap since I moved to bigger tanks. Whilst I know the water is hard
I've been informed by my LFS that these are domestic discus and are OK in
slightly harder water. The RO suggestion it only came to my head after I
lost a discus a couple of weeks ago, and whilst no-one likes loosing a fish,
I was pretty p***ed off about it.

> and you should probably increase that water change schedule. More water
> changed and more frequently. A lot of discus keepers do 50-100% changes
> every day. I do 50% changes once a week.

My tap water comes out at about 7.6 pH and if I did any larger water
changes, I'd worry that the difference would be too much of a shock to the
fish.

> btw, where do you live?

I'm a British expat, I live in France but work in Switzerland., sitting in a
foot of snow, -15 wind chill and forecast northerly winds of 80 mph for this
afternoon and I'm going home in a bit, to install a second large filter onto
the tank.

Cheers

A

[Elaine T]

Ali Day wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm looking at trying to soften the water I have now 12 - 15 dh to something
> around the 5 - 6 level after the death of one of my discus the other week.
>
> I've been in my house about about 8 months and haven't set up a dedicated
> tap etc yet, but I just attach a hose to the bath and fill the tank direct.
>
> I was looking at a reverse osmosis units, but can only find units that do
> 100 gals per day, is it possible to attach anything like this direct to the
> tap so I can fill the tank? I do 20% changes every 10 days or so, which
> makes about 35 gallon change at a time.
>
> Anyone who has experience or knows any good reading, let me know or send me
> an e-mail.
>
What about filtering over peat? That will soften your water, drop the
pH, and reproduce the conditions that discus like. You'll get a bit of
a tea color to your water, but I've always found that well worth the
benefits.

--
__ Elaine T __
><__'> http://eethomp.com/fish.html <'__><

[Ali Day]

"Elaine T" > wrote in message
om...
> Ali Day wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I'm looking at trying to soften the water I have now 12 - 15 dh to
something
> > around the 5 - 6 level after the death of one of my discus the other
week.
> >
> > I've been in my house about about 8 months and haven't set up a
dedicated
> > tap etc yet, but I just attach a hose to the bath and fill the tank
direct.
> >
> > I was looking at a reverse osmosis units, but can only find units that
do
> > 100 gals per day, is it possible to attach anything like this direct to
the
> > tap so I can fill the tank? I do 20% changes every 10 days or so, which
> > makes about 35 gallon change at a time.
> >
> > Anyone who has experience or knows any good reading, let me know or send
me
> > an e-mail.
> >
> What about filtering over peat? That will soften your water, drop the
> pH, and reproduce the conditions that discus like. You'll get a bit of
> a tea color to your water, but I've always found that well worth the
> benefits.

Was in the the shop last night picking up another filter for the tank, and
we had a chat about the peat and he has sachets similiar to carbon pillows.
put he reckoned that wouldn't work too well, why I didn't understand (it was
in french after all, and whilst my french is of good conversational level,
it's naff when you start getting technical)
But and I hope Margolis / Netmax can give me some pointers, he did say that
I could connect an RO unit to one of my taps and direct fill, slow but it
would work, is this BS or not? This would work well as I intend to drill a
hole through the floor, and bring pipes up from the basement, So I can empty
and refill the tank, from under the living room instead of hoses in it.

Cheers all

A

[Margolis]

"Ali Day" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> My tap water comes out at about 7.6 pH and if I did any larger water
> changes, I'd worry that the difference would be too much of a shock to the
> fish.
>



first off, what do you mean the difference in ph would shock your fish?
isn't your tank at the same ph as the tap since you are using tap water?

the ro unit would hook up to the cold water. The thing is, they are so slow
at producing water that you couldn't reliably trickle the water in the
proper ratios from the two different sources. It is much easier to just mix
it in a bucket or tub or can first. It will take a 100gpd unit an hour to
make just 4 gallons of water. That would be about 8 hours to produce your
35gallons.

I mix my water and heat it in 45 gallon rubbermaid trashcans. I then use a
cheap rio pump with 50' of 5/8" hose to pump the water into the tanks. The
pump is connected to an extension cord with an on/off switch that I plug in
by the tank that is being serviced. It makes filling the tanks very easy.

--

Margolis
http://web.archive.org/web/20030215212142/http://www.agqx.org/faqs/AGQ2FAQ.htm
http://www.unrealtower.org/faq

[Ali Day]

> > My tap water comes out at about 7.6 pH and if I did any larger water
> > changes, I'd worry that the difference would be too much of a shock to
the
> > fish.
> >
> first off, what do you mean the difference in ph would shock your fish?
> isn't your tank at the same ph as the tap since you are using tap water?

My tank is 6.9 changing 20% doesn't notably alter the PH (have an electronic
controller, so I'm constantly keeping an eye on it)

> the ro unit would hook up to the cold water. The thing is, they are so
slow
> at producing water that you couldn't reliably trickle the water in the
> proper ratios from the two different sources. It is much easier to just
mix
> it in a bucket or tub or can first. It will take a 100gpd unit an hour
to
> make just 4 gallons of water. That would be about 8 hours to produce your
> 35gallons.

OK cheers for that, they didn't have any in stock last night but will go
back within the next week or so and I'll relook then.

> I mix my water and heat it in 45 gallon rubbermaid trashcans. I then use
a
> cheap rio pump with 50' of 5/8" hose to pump the water into the tanks.
The
> pump is connected to an extension cord with an on/off switch that I plug
in
> by the tank that is being serviced. It makes filling the tanks very easy.

That's how I used to do it in my old house with a smaller tank, but dragging
a full bin of water through the house is a bit difficult.
My main plan is to use one of the cupboards in the basement directly below
where the tank is situated a sorted of mixing and tank water preparation
room, but until then I can't use the trashcan option.

Thanks for the info.

A

[NetMax]

"Ali Day" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Elaine T" > wrote in message
> om...
>> Ali Day wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> > I'm looking at trying to soften the water I have now 12 - 15 dh to
> something
>> > around the 5 - 6 level after the death of one of my discus the other
> week.
>> >
>> > I've been in my house about about 8 months and haven't set up a
> dedicated
>> > tap etc yet, but I just attach a hose to the bath and fill the tank
> direct.
>> >
>> > I was looking at a reverse osmosis units, but can only find units
>> > that
> do
>> > 100 gals per day, is it possible to attach anything like this direct
>> > to
> the
>> > tap so I can fill the tank? I do 20% changes every 10 days or so,
>> > which
>> > makes about 35 gallon change at a time.
>> >
>> > Anyone who has experience or knows any good reading, let me know or
>> > send
> me
>> > an e-mail.
>> >
>> What about filtering over peat? That will soften your water, drop the
>> pH, and reproduce the conditions that discus like. You'll get a bit
>> of
>> a tea color to your water, but I've always found that well worth the
>> benefits.
>
> Was in the the shop last night picking up another filter for the tank,
> and
> we had a chat about the peat and he has sachets similiar to carbon
> pillows.
> put he reckoned that wouldn't work too well, why I didn't understand
> (it was
> in french after all, and whilst my french is of good conversational
> level,
> it's naff when you start getting technical)
> But and I hope Margolis / Netmax can give me some pointers, he did say
> that
> I could connect an RO unit to one of my taps and direct fill, slow but
> it
> would work, is this BS or not? This would work well as I intend to
> drill a
> hole through the floor, and bring pipes up from the basement, So I can
> empty
> and refill the tank, from under the living room instead of hoses in it.
>
> Cheers all
>
> A


Continuous water change systems follow two guidelines. The 1st is to
have enough flow to achieve your objective (and this is relatively easy
to do). The 2nd is to keep the drip parameters as close to the tank as
possible. If the parameters are too different (ie: extremely cold
water), then you need to reduce your flow, but then you might not achieve
your first objective (flow rate). In regards to different water
parameters, you can sometime compensate other ways (ie: with cold water
drip, run your heaters at a higher temperature, but don't forget to turn
your drip off when you have a power failure ;~).

Running an RO drip will cause two vectors. First it will reduce by
dilution, the gH of the tank, (which if the kH is solid, will not affect
the pH), and it will reduce by dilution, the kH (oops, bad). Everytime
you do a water change with tap water (or a harder mix), your kH (and gH)
will increase to restart this cyclical process. In theory, if the kH
cycle (minimum and maximum) were both high enough to maintain a fixed pH,
then the fish would only see the stress of the gH rebounding. How
acceptable or unacceptable that would be, would depend on the type of
fish, the flow rate, the gH delta, the tank volume etc etc. I am
pessimistic.

You would improve your chances of success by running 2 drips
simultaneously, one from the RO and the other from your tap. This will
let you 'dial in' your target gH, and prop your kH (if needed) in much
smaller dosages to maintain your pH.

You might find that your tap is slightly deficient in some of the
minerals you want back in, but recall that you are now adding a smaller
dose almost continuously, which can make up to an extent, the lower than
optimal levels.
--
www.NetMax.tk