I think you should start weening them off the salt, but just a little at a time like you said to avoid putting them in shock. Im not an expert, but thats what I would do. how much salt do you add during water changes? salt supposedly does help prevent certain diseases and parasites, but I think in the case of african cichlids it will do more harm than good
Very Confused - Cichlids vs. Brackish Water
- Thread starter jjhgoodguy
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How about adding an african rift lake cichlid salt from either H2O aquatics or seachem? Just for general prophylactic and prevention of a possible number of diseases. Furthermore what are the pros of having cichlid salt in your water?
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Rift Lake cichlid 'salt' will increase the hardness and alkalinity of water, which is the ideal (but not necessarily required) water properties to keep them in. However I don't believe rift lake salt will perform as a general prophylactic pr disease preventative.
If kept well (fed a quality diet and kept in a stable environment will great water conditions) they'll be healthy on their own and typically resistant to maladies (barring, of course, the introduction of disease(s) brought on by a new fish that wasn't quarantined, etc).
If kept well (fed a quality diet and kept in a stable environment will great water conditions) they'll be healthy on their own and typically resistant to maladies (barring, of course, the introduction of disease(s) brought on by a new fish that wasn't quarantined, etc).
I put regular aquarium salt in my convict tank with each water change, keeps them ick and other disease free, they seem fine with it.
kay-bee so if cichlid salt is basically a buffer can I still add it into the mbuna tank even if I already have crushed corals for a gravel acting as a natural buffer? Will there be any adverse effects to doing that?
kay-bee so if cichlid salt is basically a buffer can I still add it into the mbuna tank even if I already have crushed corals for a gravel acting as a natural buffer? Will there be any adverse effects to doing that?
Lupin
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That's basically a waste of time and money in my opinion. Table salt would have work for a fraction of the aquarium salt's price but adding salt without anything wrong at all is even more unnecessary. Don't fix what is broken.
i have a 55 gallon african cichlid tank from malawi...and i have never added anything to it..no ph stuff no hardner. no nothing...my water from the tap is ph 7.5 and liquid rock hardness...however i have never added salt or anything like that...and my cichlids are breeding like crazy i have 25 assorted kinds of cichlid fry so obviously all of this water chemistry stuff doesnt really matter to them...IMO. i used to worry about that kind of stuff untill someone like the moderator said...why worry with it? they are healthy leave them ALONE! lol i was doing everything under the sun. and when i left them alone....oddly enough. they started breeding! lol so you can try with the chemistry stuff but in my experience it didnt do that much of anything. i have very healthy parenting cichlids without all the additives. so anyway that my oppinion it isnt worth anything. just my experience...however if it does it help with them...let me know...i might go back! LOL
endlessdream I add half (or maybe a little less) a teaspoon of salt per galon.
Lupin aquarium salt is about 2 bucks a pop, un-ionized table salt is about the same, dunno about unnecessary that may be, but ever since I've had the worst case of ick I've just been adding salt as a general precaution and it seems to work so far.
hotpod your tap water is hard as it is, and yea it might become softer in a tank, BUT where I live the tap water's ph fluctuates and is anywhere near 6.0-6.4, which is then even softer in the tank (my convict tank water is around 6.0 right now, though convicts are pretty hardy and bred in it just fine, I just don't wanna experiment with mbuna).
Lupin aquarium salt is about 2 bucks a pop, un-ionized table salt is about the same, dunno about unnecessary that may be, but ever since I've had the worst case of ick I've just been adding salt as a general precaution and it seems to work so far.
hotpod your tap water is hard as it is, and yea it might become softer in a tank, BUT where I live the tap water's ph fluctuates and is anywhere near 6.0-6.4, which is then even softer in the tank (my convict tank water is around 6.0 right now, though convicts are pretty hardy and bred in it just fine, I just don't wanna experiment with mbuna).
There isn't really any need to add table salt or aquarium salt to your tank as a "general tonic". If you need to treat ich, use it for treatment and then stop after the treatment is finished. Once the ich has been eradicated, there's no need to continue treating for it.
