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[patria]

Hi, everyone.

My question is this: I want to lower my Ph and soften my water. i went out to the hardwear store and bought some peatmos. I would like to know how much peat do i have to put in my fluval 404 to get my Ph betwen 5.5 and 6. i also have driftwood in the tank to soften it, and a diy co2 thing, as of now my Ph is 6.5, gh is 80 an kh is 40mg, and how much salt is good to soften your water and is salt good for discus,

tks Dave

[darkdep]

Salt doesn't soften your water.  "Hardness" refers to the amount of Calcium/Magnesium in the water; you can't reduce this number by adding sodium.

To lower pH you need to add acids to the water; peat and driftwood add tannic acid.

How much peat depends on a lot.  I would put a bunch in a mesh bag (pantyhose works fine), toss it in, and check in a week.  It isn't an instant process.

[BigDaddy]

If your pH is currently 6.5, you do not need to do anything further to please your discus.  Discus can live and thrive in higher pH values than that... what discuss prefer is STABLE pH values.  Keep your water clean and at relatively the same specs and your discus will be more than happy.

[darkdep]

More info...

I've been reading a lot about pH this last couple of days, and a lot of the more advanced stuff I've read seems to state that pH doesn't matter at all; it's the OTHER things that pH affects that cause issues with fish.  Many fish live in conditions where natural pH shifts can go from 4 to 7 in the matter of a day (that's a 1000 times difference!) without ill effect.

Things such as ammonia can be affected by pH tho.  As pH goes up, ammonium changes into ammonia, making it toxic to fish.  If your tank has insufficient biofiltration, then a pH shift can cause a mass release of toxic ammonia which can definitely hurt your fish.  But, no ammonium in the water, nothing happens.

I agree with BD...everything I've ever done with fish has shown that stable pH is far more important than "perfect" pH.