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  1. #1
    Just an Egg
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    Extreme water hardness

    Hi, new to discus keeping and have a serious problem with the hardness of my bore water. After loosing my four discus last week when I'd religiously checked water parameters, undertaken 20 - 30% wc, chemical adjustments, incorporating live plant on driftwood etc I decided maybe there was something wrong with the water hardness, yep! Checked my tank and KH came out at 161.1 ppm & GH off the chart, took 14 drops to change to green, so in excess of 214.8 ppm. BTW, tank was up for three weeks without fish. Lost my discus within the second week of having them. Tank capacity 220 L. Any ideas of how I can correct this would be much appreciated.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Krissy View Post
    Hi, new to discus keeping and have a serious problem with the hardness of my bore water. After loosing my four discus last week when I'd religiously checked water parameters, undertaken 20 - 30% wc, chemical adjustments, incorporating live plant on driftwood etc I decided maybe there was something wrong with the water hardness, yep! Checked my tank and KH came out at 161.1 ppm & GH off the chart, took 14 drops to change to green, so in excess of 214.8 ppm. BTW, tank was up for three weeks without fish. Lost my discus within the second week of having them. Tank capacity 220 L. Any ideas of how I can correct this would be much appreciated.
    Water hardness will not kill the fish. Sounds like you were trying to get everything parameters to the book, often a mistake. Of course discus like softer water parameters, but they are fine in harder water too. What was the hardness of the water that they had been in before you bought them?
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  3. #3
    Just an Egg
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    Hi Hollowman,

    Unfortunately I don't know what the hardness was. I purchased them from a local supplier who advised they believed when I told them what happened that it was probably the hardness of the water. Some of the research I've done seems to support this so I'm interested in your thoughts on water hardness as I've not replaced the discus as was thinking of doing a combination of Reverse osmosis water and bore water because of the research suggesting discus don't do well in hard water. I agree with you I was trying to do everything by the book - was just getting in a viscious cycle of chemical correction after chemical correction. Perhaps I should try again as I've kept the tank running since and the corydoras are still doing fine without all the chemical additives? Just don't like the thought of killing more of these beautiful fish if it doesn't work.

  4. #4
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    Krissy, I think many people do what you did and like you say, all the chemical buffering really is not so good or necessary. As an example, take a look at this web site for Stenker discus in Germany.

    http://diskuszucht-stendker.de/en/Wissenswertes/

    And these PDFs from his site, the link specifically refers to water parameters

    http://diskuszucht-stendker.de/plugi...rchemie_en.pdf

    Ok, this is in Germany, but water is water and even though it can vary in composition all over the world, what you have described is similar to what I have in the UK and in Germany.

    I would also take issue with the diagnosis given by your supplier, how do you know that the fish were not infested with internal parasites or worms? This can silently kill many fish, although to the educated eye can be seen a mile off. Did you add your new discus to an existing stock of fish? Maybe there was an illness transmitted because of no quarantine.

    Using water similar to the sellers water parameters is always a bonus, but though water changes you can ween them back onto the water you have from your bore hole, this can be done with mixing with RO water over a period of water changes, or if you already use RO then if you can only use RO. Having a big storage tank for RO water and aging/heating is always a bonus but not essential.

    Other than this diagnosis of the reasons the fish died is not easy unless you have photos. Don't be put off keeping discus, they are quite bulletproof really if you do it right.

    Good luck
    Why me ?

  5. #5
    Hi, I'm New Here!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Krissy View Post
    BTW, tank was up for three weeks without fish. Lost my discus within the second week of having them. Tank capacity 220 L. Any ideas of how I can correct this would be much appreciated.
    How did you cycle the tank? What were the nitrite & nitrate readings? Its possible the tank might not have been cycled long enough?

  6. #6
    Just an Egg
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    I purchased the Fluval U4 (240 Litre) pump and followed the instructions and ran it without fish for three weeks - cannot recall now what else I did. The nitrites weren't too bad except for one occasion when they reached around 0.50 ppm; the nitrates on the other hand fluctuated between 10 - 40 ppm. I think Hollowman's suggestion of first timer's chemical buffering may have been my major mistake and perhaps you're correct that the tank needed to be cycled for longer than three weeks. The day my discus died I had been away overnight and come home in the morning to find the tank totally cloudy and the fish attempting to breathe up the top; took them out and put them in a bucket of water and rapidly did a wc of about 80% - pretty sure that the tank was still clouding, although after the w/c? Cleaned the filter but all to no avail as the discus did not survive the day. Having read the diskusucht pdf's that Hollowman put me onto I feel a bit more confident of trying again and perhaps this time, as you suggested, cycling the tank longer than three weeks?

  7. #7
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    Krissy,

    Cycling a tank can take up to 6 weeks before it is mature. How did you cycle it? For example, when I cycled my sump filter for my system, I was adding neat ammonia to the water to kickstart the cycle. Some people in Aus will add a shrimp into the water and as it rots it gives off ammonia (quite smelly) but it will start the cycle and with daily checks you will see the ammonia levels start to lower and the nitrates get back to around 10-25 too. I will try and find a post about proper cycling for you to try next time.
    Last edited by Hollowman; Sun Aug 07, 2016 at 09:24 AM.
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  8. #8
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    Why me ?

  9. #9
    Hi, I'm New Here!
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  10. #10
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    I would recommend the fish less cycle
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