All of my discus are kept in tap water. The only thing I add is water conditioner to neutralize the chlorine. The only time that I would recommend adding buffers is if a person is finding the PH in their tank is dropping by more than 0.5 between water changes. Buffering the water (making it harder) would only have a negative affect on breeding. If the water is too hard the eggs won't get fertilized. For most areas around here reverse osmosis water is unnecessary for breeding as our tap water is already perfect. Some areas like White Rock have hard water so it's always worth checking your tap water just to be sure of what you are dealing with.
Awesome. Ive been doing research of gh and kh and it seems to be quite important.
I found this in another article about discus:
PH
Display - 6.5 - 7.5
Breeding - 5.5 - 6.5
Grow-Out - 6.8 - 7.5
Hardness:
Display - 10-15 GH, 5-8 KH
Breeding - 1-4 GH, 0-1 KH
Growing-Out - 8-15 GH, 5-8KH
How true is this? Ive read that kh is in direct correlation to our ph and is a form of calcium which promotes good bone growth so is it really necessary to bump my kh to 5-8 if i want to grow big healthy discus? If this is the case buffing our water to get a higher kh value would increase our ph to extremely high levels, correct?
Im trying to raise fry but they seem to die after a few days after free swimming. I use direct tap water and conditioner and I change the water everday 50%. It seems that I'm doing everything right but still no success.
I also have a grow out tank and i want to make sure that my water paramters are optimal to grow them as big as i can.