Sand and driftwood

[matthewY]

I'm after a bit of advice around sand and driftwood.

I am looking at replacing the gravel I have at the moment with sand and have done abit of research. Most places suggest using silica sand as it would have no effect on the ph.

The tank itslef would hold some discus and the water from the tap has high ph (tests show atleast 7.5 and possibly up to 7.8ish???).

Ideally the sand would help softern the water and stabilise / lower the ph, in addition, if possible, I'll like the sand to be dark. Is there any other options outside of silica sand (which I can only find in white)? Also, best place to buy the sand (I live in wellington).

Finally, people talk about putting a thin layer of peat as a lower substrate for hellping plants, however, generally they then talk about how they regret doing so. I want to avoid peat as I think it makes too much of a mess to remove and it rots away to easily (possibly???). Instead, I think it might be easier to just grab some driftwood from the petshop, smash it into smaller cubes / chunks and either put these into the filter (to help reduce ph and softern water as an alternative to peat in filter) and scatter amount the gravel/sand.

Looking for advice on if this is good/ bad idea, if it would achieve the lower ph and not cause issues with ph spikes etc.

Water change is currently done slowly by dripping tap water and applying a bit of prime water conditioner into tank. Tank holds approx 300L, filter is a trademe one similar to the Atman UF2400.

I am also using Co2 but only in small quantities and only when lights are on. Idea is it migth just help take the edge off the high ph and help with plants however I dont want the ph to rely to heavely on co2 incase the bottle runs out and doesnt get replaced straight away and ph changes etc....

again, advice / thoughts much appreciated.

Matt

[suphew]

No sand will soften water. Water is soft because of a lack of minerals, sand will either be inert or will release minerals.

Peat is a good idea but will stain your water, have you considered collecting rain water and using that?? It is very soft, I used to mix about 50/50 rain and tap water to get a good softness.

[matthewY]

is there substrate / sand which would lower the ph (i'm not all that align with softness relating to ph but assume that teh softer the water teh lower the ph....)? it sounds like you are saying sand will either increase ph or do nothing to ph but never lower ph, is this correct?

I have tried the rain water approach but live in city area. I have found that I cant collectr enough rain water easily without attaching to teh drain pipes or scooping up off the streets.... Also, rain isnt all that dependable here and I cant hold of water changes waiting for rain :-(

I have a distiller that would produce 4L over 4 hours which may be a way to go (assuming i dont need much of teh water to mix, maybe 80% tap, 20% distilled?) otherwise I may have to look into prices of cheap RO systems....

As for staining water, I dont mind it too much but still woudl perfer chunks of wood to using peat for maintainance reasons both in teh filter and scattered on the gravel / sand...

[Navarre]

I use a fine gravel for my plant tanks and usually have a layered approach

By this I mean that I place some sort of fert on the base of the tank.

either Daltons or laterite aqua plus or some such.

then about a 1-2 cm layer of sand and then at 2-4 cm layer of FINE gravel shifted from other gravel say 1-3 mm. That way I can control the colour etc (I like the dark stuff as well)

I have used peat as a bottom layer and had no problems with it as long as you do little to no digging in the gravel. I dont vax the gravel just the mulm that bulids up on the surface of the gravel ( Vax is about a cm about the gravel when I water change)

Another option is to use peat in a stocking in your filter. Boiling up so that it sinks then add to a stocking tie off and put in filter. Both these methods will up set water clarity a bit but that will soon settle.

I am not sure that wood broken up will be that effective nor that consistant as once it finishes releasingtannins it will be hard to mainatin at an easy level where with the peat you can just change it out of the stocking and replace

I have never scattered peat on top ofthe sand to alter ph as this will just be swirled aroudn and foul the tank and then be removed with a water change.

HTH

Navarre

[Bilbo]

What is the problem with 7.5 to 7.8?

More important is very clean water and the ability to change it with the same water on a daily basis.

IMO it will be worse for them if you have a tank with soft water lowered to 6 or 6.5 and then once a day during water changes you put in 30 - 50% of water that is majorly different.

I agree that for breeding you should have soft acidic water but a display tank at 7+ should have no problems, infact alot of people will have higher pH and hardness delibrately to bring out better colours.

[matthewY]

So far its prob ok but I dont think its ideal. I do water changes very oftern prob change 20% a day but a bit concern the guys going to turn out stunted and thought upping temp and giving it more "better" water conditions (lower ph) would be better for growth and health. The discus is about 1 year old, about 8cm and colours are not showing in main part of body.... Currently in a pretty small tank (60L) his friends have had issues in the past and didnt make it, this guy was the only one treated with metro cos of the lack of avaliability (treated in a 5l tub floating in tank). Anway, looking at setting up the main tank again 300L and wanted to kick it off correctly hence if being able to safely maintain a lower (7 is pretty good I would think, somewhere where fish may be more relaxed but doesnt have too much risk of big ph changes) then things may be better off this time around....

this time round i want to make sure gravel is right (last one was just that mixed stuff from petshop which i have heard has a pretty high ph but also sand seems easier to clean as teh waste doesnt get traped as easily), the filter is right (2400L one with UV to help out as opposed to 1200L one) and ofcourse better water changes (plan to have it drip into a container which has overflow into the tank so water is aged abit before going in but also teh container will have some water conditioner added too).

Also vet seems happier to help with avaliability of metro (when needed) which is a plus....

Anyway, my wish etc.

I'm really trying to maintain a stable ph that is slightly more better for the types of fish I plan to keep.

[Bilbo]

Alot of people keep discus in pH 8 or even 9 with no ill effects. Stability in water conditions and good food should be enough if your fish has no other problems.

If you are concerned then pehaps test also for TDS, GH, KH as well as NH and NO as pH by itself is only one small part of water quality.

Spikes in pH are usually caused by water that is to soft so no buffering which kind of means that only small amounts of pH altering substance is required to change the pH value a large amount.

If your fish is looking stunted then is it pale or dark and is it active or hiding alot? Perhaps a general med like levamisole might be an idea? That usually perks up most fish and gives them a good appetite.

[matthewY]

K, have measured water's ph and getting "funny" results.

The electronic ph meter reads about 6.5ish while the chemical one is dark blue (high 7's or low 8's?), no idea what to trust. The chemical one is dated though, expired a few months back.

TDS is around 90 ppm, is this high?

The discus is active but is always showing stress bars, also, I would have expected it to have grown more then it has over the time Ive had him. If it wasn't for the reading on people having 12cm and greater discus then I woudlnt even had known (or at least fro a few more years). I'll try and take a picture of him tonight to let others decide.

At the end of the day, if hes happy and stunted (but not stunted to the point here it becomes health issues) then I would not care but all his friends has passed on and so I became concerned that something fundamental is wrong with the main tank and potentially the current tank he's in (ie: waster). I do enough water changes (20%) of the small tank (50L) such that i would not think waste is the issue, Also have filters which prod doesent build up the bacteria as it should cos of the water changes but it does create current and add air into the water. Food is mix of colour bits, frozen blood worms, frozen brine shrimps and usually discus tucker (had not given for 6 months but hes now back on it).

Might get water tested at pet shop and see what they say but i think I'm doing things right and have been for some time but he still isnt growing the way I would have expected....