Hi From Adelaide

[shell42]

Hey Everyone,

I'm a fish keeper from Adelaide, I mostly keep Angelfish and Catfish (both a range of BN's (orange spot, peppermints, Albinos and Commons) and a few Synodontis. I often have catfish for sale, but I have to replace some of my breeding stock thanks to a horrible heat wave that we had in Adelaide (lost a beautiful orange spot male and a peppermint female) =(

I'm looking at getting some discus, still unsure as to how to set up the tank to house them properly. My water is good, just its PH is hard to lower due to hardness. I have lots of driftwood and sword plants in the tank I want to put the discus in.

the tank 3X2X2' is currently housing perl gourami and BN catfish out of another of my tanks and it is fully cycled.

I'm thinking the blue turquoise are the discus for me, what are some methods you use to lower your PH? adding "PH Down" powder does little to my water unless I add ALOT which can't be good for the fishes.

[ILLUSN]

Welcome to the forum, unfortunatly your going to be fighting a loosing battle to try and lower your ph with chemicals, adelaide water is like rock from what I've herd, your cheepest bet would be to install a rainwater tank and use that for your discus, failing that the only other option is an RO unit, expensive and wastefull but there really isn't any other option.

if you can try and source some locally bred fish, these should be "used" to your alkaline water and you'll have much better results than with alot of the imported stuff.

btw 4-5 discus would look good in 3x2x2 if its planted try and get adults or semi adults as growing up juvis in a planted tank is a real pain.

[shell42]

yeah Adelaide water is a complete pain, I have experimented with the PH before,and yeah it can throw a whole bottle of PH down into the tank 4-5X the dose and yeah nothing.

Oh the plus side I never have PH crashes.

I can't install a rainwater tank where I am, but I could truck it over from my parents house, that is a good idea. =) tnx!