African cichlids and hardness

InR reason

InR reason

InR reason
May 28, 2006
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All my parameters for my African Cichlid tank are fine save for my water hardness. My tap water is very soft. I will be adding some epson salt later today and want to know if this will have any noticeable effect in terms of the fish being more active. Also- what's a good rule of thumb when it comes to adding both epson and aquarium salts?
 
africans need special salts specifically formulated to meet the needs of their native lakes. if you go into a good fish shop they should have (or be willing to get in) some african lake salts and buffers. that is what you need.
 
Remember as well to increase hardness slowley so not to shock the fish, about 1 degree every 12 hrs or 24hrs to be on the safe side.
 
africans need special salts
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i'd disagree with that as a blanket statement. many (if not most) water in the US at least, is already hard and alkaline. adding more 'salt' will add nothing not already present in your tap water.

if you have soft water, absent of Ca, Mg, CO3, HCO3, and other 'hard' water minerals, then the addition of "Rift Lake" salts is a good thing.
 
unless your tap is coming out with the same chemistry as the lake your africans are from, you need to do something with it. and water chemistry can vary by county, let alone the whole country as a whole, so a blanket statement like "many (if not most) water in the US at least, is already hard and alkaline." that is probably worse than mine that they need special salt. you may not need the same dose as what the bottle says if your water is already hard, but that doesnt mean the fish wont do better with the manufactured lake salts and buffers.
 
if you're talking about Lake Tanganyika, i'd agree with you that the likelyhood of needing to add some Rift lake salts is high. my assumption is that we're talking about Lake Malawi here, since this is the most common African cichlid and likely the fish that 'reason' has.

more has been written about Lake Malawi than any other Lake which is not surprising since it is home to an estimated 600 species of fish.

the chemistry of Malawi is rather simplistic in comparison with Lake Tanganyika. Lake Malawi, like Victoria, receives most of its water from either direct run off or from one of its many low salinity tributaries, and the resulting chemistry is rather nominal.

what this means for the average keeper of fish from lake Malawi is, if you were to begin with neutral water or moderate GH and KH, is ideally less “tinkering” with water parameters as would be required for Tanganyikan water. with Malawi being such a large body of water, it should not come as a surprise that the chemistry is quite variable, with pH values ranging from 7.7-8.8, depending upon where in the lake you check it.

with Malawi water, you are basically dealing with water that is high in sodium (~21.0mg/L), calcium (~ 16.4-19.4 mg/L), magnesium (~4.7-8.8 mg/L), chloride (~4.0mg/L), and sulfate (~5.5 mg/L), while being surprisingly low in carbonates and bicarbonates (~2.4-2.6 meq/L).

unless your tap is coming out with the same chemistry as the lake your africans are from, you need to do something with it. and water chemistry can vary by county, let alone the whole country as a whole
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with such variability, it doesn't matter whether your chemistry differs by county or throughout the country ... if your water is already hard and alkaline, it very likely is fine for Malawi cichlids. why spend money on 'salts' you don't need.

i believe you're falling for the 'hype' that abounds as regards 'salt' for malawi cichlids.
 
so malawis dont do any better with malawi lake salt added than malawis kept in unaltered tapwater?
 
Well I added a bit of Epson Salt to the tank- the results were almost instantaneous with regards to raising the GH a bit. My fish seem happier with it too. This simple formula has been touted on several websites as a safe way to raise your GH. Strangely enough though, my PH and KH are already very high.
 
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