Salt in cichlid tanks
- Thread starter graysilm
- Start date
I just wanted to say thanks to liv2padl for the analysis information. I could not find the old link I had for the Rift lakes.
Now to add some perspective to that information.
Lake Tanganyika has 57-64 Mg/l (ppm) sodium and 29-37 Mg/l chloride.
Now we can easily see from the information posted that Tanganyika is by far the saltiest of the rift lakes.
Salt (NaCl) is 60.663% Cl and 39.337% Na
Based on average weight of a teaspoon of standard table salt 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon provides 2124 ppm NACl.
So if we use 1 tabblespoon of Salt for 5 gallons of water we have 0.6 teaspoons per gallon and have added 1274.4 ppm of NaCL. If we roughly divide this by the percentages of each element (I'm not sure that is the correct way to do the math) then we have 773 ppm Cl, and 501.31 ppm of Na.
So roughly 9 times the sodium needed, and 20 times the chloride needed. CL is of course less harmful than the sodium long term, but still not needed or IMO desired in my tanks. Additionally if we are adding NaCl instead of other elements, we are still subjecting our fish to a shortage, while overdosing Na and CL. Run the numbers for the less salty rift lakes and they obviously are far more out of line.
Magnesium and Calcium are necessary to almost any hard water situation. They seem to be the predominant element is most natural water (Statement of the obvious I realise). These can be added via a million or so methods and products. My preference for Rift lake fish would be aragionite in the filter or substrate. Crushed coral, dolomitic lime, Kalkwasser (look in marine products) Calcium chloride (Driveway heet Ice melter) epsom salts (Mg So4) so on and etc.
There is much to understand and learn, but the bottom line is you can set up a pretty darn good rift lake tank with Cichlid salts, Crushed coral or aragonite, and never look back or get deeply into mineral profiles. Don't make things more complicated than you want, but learn all you can.
Dave
Now to add some perspective to that information.
Lake Tanganyika has 57-64 Mg/l (ppm) sodium and 29-37 Mg/l chloride.
Now we can easily see from the information posted that Tanganyika is by far the saltiest of the rift lakes.
Salt (NaCl) is 60.663% Cl and 39.337% Na
Based on average weight of a teaspoon of standard table salt 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon provides 2124 ppm NACl.
So if we use 1 tabblespoon of Salt for 5 gallons of water we have 0.6 teaspoons per gallon and have added 1274.4 ppm of NaCL. If we roughly divide this by the percentages of each element (I'm not sure that is the correct way to do the math) then we have 773 ppm Cl, and 501.31 ppm of Na.
So roughly 9 times the sodium needed, and 20 times the chloride needed. CL is of course less harmful than the sodium long term, but still not needed or IMO desired in my tanks. Additionally if we are adding NaCl instead of other elements, we are still subjecting our fish to a shortage, while overdosing Na and CL. Run the numbers for the less salty rift lakes and they obviously are far more out of line.
Magnesium and Calcium are necessary to almost any hard water situation. They seem to be the predominant element is most natural water (Statement of the obvious I realise). These can be added via a million or so methods and products. My preference for Rift lake fish would be aragionite in the filter or substrate. Crushed coral, dolomitic lime, Kalkwasser (look in marine products) Calcium chloride (Driveway heet Ice melter) epsom salts (Mg So4) so on and etc.
There is much to understand and learn, but the bottom line is you can set up a pretty darn good rift lake tank with Cichlid salts, Crushed coral or aragonite, and never look back or get deeply into mineral profiles. Don't make things more complicated than you want, but learn all you can.
Dave
