Recontstitute RO water.

[Jaws]

Hi How do you make RO water suitable for breeding tanks.What ph/tds/etc do you aim for and how do you achieve them.Thanks

[Merrilyn]

Hi Jaws, and welcome to the forum. Where are you from.

Are you running your grow out tanks on tap water or are you using RO for all your water.

Discus can live and grow in just about any water, but if your water is naturally hard or the pH is over 7.5, you will need to add RO water to bring it down.

For breeding, you need to aim for a pH of between 6.5 and 7. I find 6.7 works well for me. The water needs to be as soft as you can comfortably manage. Aim for a GH of around 10 or so, for the highest hatch rate.

There are no hard and fast rules. It's something you need to balance out. RO water is expensive to produce, and on it's own is unsuitable to support life. So some raw tap water must be added to provide the necessary minerals. There are also mixes you can buy from the lfs to reconstitute RO water.

Good luck with your breeding plans.

[Jaws]

Hi Thanks for the reply.I'm from Brisbane and the water here is quite hard with a PH arounb 7.6.I'm only using RO for my breeding tanks.When I add back Tap water to get the hardness I still need to lower the PH and then the PH bounces around alot.Have you used any of the buffers available and how did they go. Thanks

[Merrilyn]

I'm going to ask for one of the guys who uses an RO unit to answer this. I live in Melbourne, and our water is a discus breeders' dream. Comes out of the tap at 7.1 which drops to 6.7 after ageing. Hardness between 0 and 3 depending on the time of year.

We have several discus keepers in Adelaide who use RO. Let's hope one of them can help.

[Jaws]

Thanks Merrilyn