Discus-Water hardness

[BK]

Copy of e-mail sent to supplier of my Discus

My question to you is should I increase the hardness as it reads KN10 and GN40. Have just got "Discus trace elements" solution which I'll add tonight but this won't change the hardness much. pH is 6.3 and starting to bring it up to local water of 7.4. Lots of plants in tank and use peat when pH gets up to 7.0. Currently changing about 10-20% water daily. What should I add if you recommend increasing Hardness and to what level?

P.S feeding Beef heart 2x daily and tetra bits 1x daily, this is changing to Beef heart 1xdaily and tetra bits 2x daily this week.

[robert]

Can i suggest you stop putting chemicals and other crap in the water, dont treat anything untill you catch it, just give your fish good filtration clean water and good food and they will not need anything else, they will have to adjust to chch water sooner or later, i mean it you will kill them with the rubbish you are putting in there tank.

[BK]

Just reading about water hardness and compareing it to CHCH water as now they have settled in I'll slowly match tank water with tap water. Reduced pH has been done with peat (reduced ph previous to receiving fish with buffer once fish were added have used peat) and only other chems used is cycle and the Trace elements which is a dose of 10mlr a week. With 10-20% water change daily I think it well take any where between 1-2 weeks to do this. Once pH is around 7 I'll add a small bag of peat. Oh no meds in tank as fin damage is gone. This well leave me with maintenance program of 3 feeds daliy with excess removed, 10-20% water canges due to food removely and addation of cycle and trace elements weekly as well as peat.