# African Lake salt ?



## Murray1983 (Jan 3, 2016)

I am currently cycling my 180g Frontosa/Tang tank , my question is : Is it a good idea to add African Lake Salt to the aquarium water , and at every water change ? I can probably guess there is pros and cons but would like to know what everyone thought before I start using or don't start using it . Thanks


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

I suggest you test the hardness (GH) and alkalinity (KH) of your source (tap) water before messing with buffers or cichlid salts as there may be no need for these products.


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## Murray1983 (Jan 3, 2016)

The tap water is about 7-7.5 in ph , I have limestone in the tank to help and some ph supplement


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

You need to buy the GH and KH test kits or have your tap water tested for these parameters to know if you need to buffer your tank or use cichlid salts. Knowing those parameters will also let you know if you need to use pH supplements at all.

What is the pH of your tap water? Do that test with a sample of your tap water in a clean glass container at room temperature and then again after the same sample has been exposed to air after 24 hours. Post the results in this thread.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

In spite of coming from a high ph environment, high ph is still bad news in the aquarium world and they do fine without it. Unless you have very low ph like 6.5 I'd stay away from it lest you raise it too much.


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## nodima (Oct 3, 2002)

Fish Jerk said:


> In spite of coming from a high ph environment, high ph is still bad news in the aquarium world and they do fine without it. Unless you have very low ph like 6.5 I'd stay away from it lest you raise it too much.


Can you elaborate or cite sources? How is high pH bad in the aquarium world, and what are you considering high pH?

I'm noticing a trend with your posts where you throw out some dogma with nothing to back it up (your filtration posts in general excluded). The problem is that this often can lead to perpetuating old myths and legends, and then when a newbie does a search they see this sort of thing with no explanation and then take it as gospel. You clearly have a lot to say and add to the forum, it would be much more helpful if you could spend the extra bit of time to add in the explanations behind the statements.

To the OP - salts are not essential for Frontosa, they can be beneficial, but until you know your gh and kh are out of range, hold off on adding them. My preference is to use my existing tap water conditions with as little chemical intervention as possible, as stability and consistency in water parameters are better than constantly adjusting parameters to get to "perfect water".


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## somebody (May 13, 2014)

I was going to post earlier on this topic but was afraid of overstepping my bounds. I just want to throw out there lake "salt" is a term thrown out and people automatically jump to NaCl. While store bought buffers and the homemade recipie have *salt* in it, its not about that. It's about the electrolytes that are present in the formula. Other various trace elements play an important role as well. All living things need outside sources of nutrition and energy to help them grow.

I use it simply because I was given a container of it a while back. Hard water is just water with a lot of TDS (total dissolved solids [read salts]). These solids are different things that have emulsified into the water, different Mets and chemical compounds and what not. As for home aquariums the water for them is supplied through a tap that is provided either through city or well supplies, there are many things that the water picks up on its way to the home aquarium.

Don't look at salt as *salt (NaCl)*, look at it more as minerals, maybe vitamins. This "buffer" ups gh/kh this producing harder water. The hard water stains in the bathroom are "salt" deposits. In the library there are quite a few articles of this and a side Google search will help you better understand the relationship between kh gh and salts. Id stick more with the cichlid-forum.com lieberry, the fellas there know what they are talking bout. You will also find the homemade buffer recipie there and you might find that more useful than any store bought recipie


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

nodima said:


> Can you elaborate or cite sources? How is high pH bad in the aquarium world, and what are you considering high pH?
> 
> I'm noticing a trend with your posts where you throw out some dogma with nothing to back it up (your filtration posts in general excluded).
> 
> The problem is that this often can lead to perpetuating old myths and legends, and then when a newbie does a search they see this sort of thing with no explanation and then take it as gospel. You clearly have a lot to say and add to the forum, it would be much more helpful if you could spend the extra bit of time to add in the explanations behind the statements.


Things that are facts, you can just google. One reason I have so many quotes in the filtration thread is because I had so much doubt cast on things that are simply facts. A lot of arguing with one guy could have been avoided with some googling or even just reading the sources I ALREADY posted.

Things that are opinions, you will always have to figure out/verify yourself through actual experience. If you say something like "adding dithers reduces mbuna aggression" or "pretty much all mbuna can be kept together, no matter how aggressive, crossbreeding issues aside" it is really hard to justify it every time you say it, and not really necessary unless someone is confused or doubtful.

Those are called hypotheses, while something like "high ph causes issues in aquaria" is a premise - a fact that's either true or untrue. Premises, you can look up yourself. Hypotheses can be a drag to constantly define and prove but it's reasonable to ask someone to explain their logic if you don't agree or don't understand.

I don't recommend to run out and rebuild a whole tank based on some internet guy's opinion, but you might want to ponder that and figure out why this might be so. A good case in point is recently someone saying they don't want mbunas and want a mixed peacock and hap tank because there won't be aggression. Ok. Except it's easy to dilute aggression with dithers, overstocking and cover than it is to be 100% sure you have a bunch of compatible fish like that and difficult to add in juvies without getting them eaten. With a tank like that, and being new to keeping those fish, you can practically guarantee some deaths will occur.

Just a minute ago I saw a youtube of a tank just like that they talk about how peaceful the tank is - and just one death lately! You just lost a beautiful 50-75 dollar fish and everything is A-ok.

People are welcome to ask on specific things, but I see many people who do repeat the same things over and over like male to female ratios and everyone takes it in stride. Yet when there's other males they don't pick on the females at all. And with several species with balanced male ration there are so many targets that aggression just hardly ever goes anywhere.

People also constantly say goldfish are a bad food source. BS. They are fantastic food source, great for coloration, zero wasted food fouling the water, can keep a long time, generally many times healthier than typical tropical fish pulled from the LFS because they resist ich and fungus greatly and have not been rehomed and generally all come from the same source, and if eaten right away will have little chance to spread most diseases even if they did have them. Today I would not feed them because I realize they are a quite intelligent fish, so unless I had unwanted spawn I could not support I would never do this. But making up some lies is not the way to get your point across in the long run.

Anyway high ph makes ammonia more toxic. High ph is also a good environment for germs. If you doubt, you can look it up. Most mbuna are tank raised anyway and quite tough and versatile with strong scales - they really do not need high ph, having some calcium in the water is good for their scales though. Along with very high temp, keeping high ph is a lot of the reason why discus and rams are so hard to raise for some people. Though for them it may actually have some benefit for ph to be high.

So personally I don't recommend to adjust your ph with malawi lake salts unless is is very low like 6.5 or lower.


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## somebody (May 13, 2014)

> dogma










huehuehuehue


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

The irony is, I go against popular "dogma" sometimes which is what spawns this.


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## somebody (May 13, 2014)

Fish Jerk said:


> The irony is, I go against popular "dogma" sometimes which is what spawns this.


Hence why Nodima was asking for cited sources. Some of your responses are against popular belief that's why he was suggesting for you to post sources of information. When a eager noob Google searches a question a year from now and cichlid forum answers pop up and the first query in the list of search results he's gonna click and read the first thing he sees. That's how I was. Dumb, ignorant, and impatient.

I have not been in this hobby for long but I have noticed that this place more than others is really specialized in information related to cichlids, this place really has experts in their field. I really don't think that he meant to be aggressive with his response though that's how I took it at first as well, he simply asked for you to provide simple sources validating the information. That's his job as a moderator. He's just keeping the boards well groomed.

Information you give is well informed *in my experience* but my experience is not factual. It hasn't been studied by professionals in a university or Lab. They are my opinion. We are all here to learn and further our understanding of the hobby and speak through experiences save the few with profesional credentials.


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