# Water conditioners and biological supplements



## slb.76 (Jul 30, 2012)

Hi, just wondering what other African Cichlid keepers use for their weekly water changes. Currently I'm using Seachem Prime for my conditioner and Big Al's Bio Support for my biological supplement along with aquarium salt.

Also do people dose for the full volume of aquarium or only for the amount of new untreated water.

Cheers


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## mhertzfeld (May 19, 2012)

Safe dosed to tank volume should be all you need unless your tap water is really far off from your PH, GH and KH needs.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

The Prime instructions state to dose for the aquarium volume if adding water directly to the tank.

I don't use bio supplements or aquarium salt for any of my tanks.

Some people are more comfortable using additives but I have not found the need for any of these products.


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## notchback65 (Apr 3, 2013)

I use ATM's Paradigm...no other additives :thumb:


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## oyster dog (Jul 2, 2013)

I use Prime, and dose for the tank volume. I don't use any bio supplements.


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## sumthinfishy (Jan 26, 2013)

i use prime only. no additives. i dose for new amount of water added not complete tank volume. never had an issue


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## B.Roberson (Nov 6, 2011)

up to tank volume. no issues. started my first tank adding additives, epsom salt plain salt , was told not needed with my water test from tap. 7.5 ph, gh 8 kh 10. never a problem since..


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## Sleeves (Aug 21, 2013)

I use tank salt and stress coat


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## earled (Jan 3, 2013)

Just stress coat during WC's. No salt or any other additives.


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## Call_me_Tom (Feb 11, 2013)

I use Dr Tim's & dose for tank volume.


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## cichlid-gal (Apr 27, 2012)

For water changes I only use Prime ...to tank volume.

For filter maintenance (and for background I run multiple filters on all tanks and clean them about every 3-4 weeks). When doing filter maintenance....if I have a filter that when I clean it I think it has gotten too dirty between changes I will add Cycle (at recommended maintenance dose). I have found that when I don't do this sometimes, the next day, there will be a smell or odor to the tank that I do not like and I have always thought it is probably a small spike in the water parameters from the filter cleaning. When I add the Cycle I do not get the smell. I don't know if it helps the filter reseed or not but for whatever reason it does help the smell to not happen. And I don't do this all the time with every filter maintenance, only when I have one that seems to have gotten a little too dirty between changes...it happens (I have a checkoff list/spreadsheet but sometimes I think I miss-mark a cleaning or something...again, it happens when you have a lot of tanks and do everything manually).

I do not add salt or any buffers to my tanks...my out of the tap PH is 8.2 and gh/kh is 9/10.


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