African Water Levels

pH (http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/rift_lake_setup.php)
Lake Victoria: 7.2-8.6
Lake Malawi: 7.4-8.6
Lake Tanganyika: 7.8-9.0
... So they are somewhat overlapping each other (so I would say that they are somewhat the same)... Others might have other opinions.

I've usually stocked my Mbuna tanks with some crushed coral substrate which tends to buffer the Ph on the high side more inline with their natural habitat. However, my water is really hard out of the tap anyways.

To be honest, I've had Mbuna do fantastic and breed like rabbits in tanks that would also be ideal for angel fish. Intuition would tell me that a fish that evolved in semi/full brackish water bodies would be prone to parasites and skin problems in non brackish tanks, but my experience has been otherwise.

Maybe I misread your post, but mbuna aren't brackish though.

Ruben Tolon said:

Maybe I misread your post, but mbuna aren't brackish though.

Click to expand...

Yes, I would say you misread it. blasterman_ adds crushed coral to raise the pH, not to add salt to the water. All the crushed coral does is bring up the pH to a level that the Mbunas natural habitat would be, if it was in the wild. They do however have something that some saltwater fish (eg. wrasse) have which is a well developed set of teeth in the throat, along with their regular teeth. Not all freshwater fish have this. They can also suck in and "smell" the water and then "spit" it back out which is what the saltwater damselfish (i think?) does too...thats why they're thought to be so closely related to brackish/saltwater fish.