# Opinions on cichlid lake salt and cichlid trace



## StokeCichlids (Jul 7, 2016)

Hi Cichlid lovers

I need your experience about using cichlid lake salt and cichlid trace. Should I use it? Do I need it? I've had very conflicting reviews when asking this question. Some people say its a waste of money but others say it really benefits the fish.

Any opinions would be really grateful.


----------



## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

I do not use them. This would depend a lot on your water and the fishes you are keeping.


----------



## StokeCichlids (Jul 7, 2016)

I'm keeping aulonoca & haplochromis from lake Malawi. Many people don't use either product, but people who do said it's benefited there fish massively.


----------



## CeeJay (Aug 16, 2016)

Have you tested for KH & GH? Were they sit will more less answer your question. If your KH & GH are low I would then look at adding something but if you have hard water there no reason to add anything. Mine is off the scale very hard water and the fish are growing like weeds.


----------



## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

I agree with the above posters.


----------



## LXXero (May 4, 2016)

my ph is about 7.6 but my kh/gh are very very low. I use the malawi buffer (ph) and the cichlid salts (hardness) to bring up the ph to 8.2 and bring up the hardness as well. i'm not sure what the cichlid trace does to be honest, it's more of some magical addictive supposed to add various minerals or something. I have been using it as well but i don't really know what it's supposed to do.


----------



## CeeJay (Aug 16, 2016)

Wow you would have great water for south American cichlids.

There are products that are just for raising kh & gh. Also what substrate do you use? On my last tank I threw in crush coral to keep ph and the water hard. Any way to add a bag to your filter? I think that's maybe the most natural way to up your hardness.

On another note I have read that the lake water isn't as hard of water as we think. I have peacock fry in tank right now with very soft water and ph of 6.8 there growing like weeds. What makes you think the fish aren't happy or need harder water?


----------



## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

Although you might not need it, if it puts your mind at ease, here is a buffer recipe that you can make cheaply.
Rift lake buffer recipe


----------



## LXXero (May 4, 2016)

CeeJay said:


> Wow you would have great water for south American cichlids.
> 
> There are products that are just for raising kh & gh. Also what substrate do you use? On my last tank I threw in crush coral to keep ph and the water hard. Any way to add a bag to your filter? I think that's maybe the most natural way to up your hardness.
> 
> On another note I have read that the lake water isn't as hard of water as we think. I have peacock fry in tank right now with very soft water and ph of 6.8 there growing like weeds. What makes you think the fish aren't happy or need harder water?


lol funny you say that cause i couldn't keep a blue ram alive worth a **** in this water for some reason. not sure why.

i use caribsea cichlid sand

I'm still not sure throwing aragonite/crushed coral all over does much unless you have a calcium reactor or something


----------



## CeeJay (Aug 16, 2016)

Wow I'm surprised that your ph isn't higher with the caribsea sand. One the thing I was sold on is it raised your ph. But I guess that just short term. You would get some what of a raise with the crush coral. I agree with you the reactor would even be better but you have a sump and bag would be cheap way to try. I guess for me I would watch how your fish act and grow that would be the way to determine what I would do. But long term low kh & gh will have some what of an effect. They need some of these minerals for good health.

I have my rams in water very similar to your water. R/O water with 20% hard water mix back in the only thing that's different is the ph is at 6.8. I just wonder if they were bad rams. But then again they can be less hardy then others.


----------



## LXXero (May 4, 2016)

i've kinda read it's mostly BS that any sand or substrate raises your ph. You can pile up aragonite in your tank, but without anything to break it down, like a calcium reactor (really only used on saltwater), i'm not sure it does much. A calcium reactor uses co2 to lower the PH and break down the aragonite into calcium and raises alkalinity...if anything they often have a negative effect on ph lol as you purposely create an acidic environment with a co2 tank to essentially break down aragonite, which is basically like dead coral skeletons lol.

I've been told the whole story that it will "buffer" ph or help keep it at a given level, but i have a feeling it's all mostly subjective and no one's actually tested it. All I know is that i still need to add buffer to raise my ph back to 8.2 after waterchanges. About 2 spoonfuls for 50-70gals worth of water is what seems to do the trick.

RODI water is one thing i didn't have when i tried to keep those blue rams. My one ph test kit constantly read 7.0-7.2 on my ph and it was a bad reading, after using proper ph probes and better test kits i know now that my water is about 7.6 out the faucet, probably too high for blue rams, though i'm now having good luck with bolivians. Of course, now i have an RODI for my salt tank, so if i were to do it over again, i already know that's what i'd be doing. They coulda been bad rams, the first ones i got definitely had parasites, and now i keep losing guppies in that tank with what seems to be red gills, wondering if i have some kinda gill flukes in that tank or something that maybe killed the rams.


----------



## awanderingmoose (Aug 11, 2016)

LXXero said:


> i know now that my water is about 7.6 out the faucet, probably too high for blue rams,


While 7.6 might be high for WC, many tank/pond raised rams tend to be fairly tolerant of "high" pH (which is to say, around/slightly over 7), so long as the water is fairly soft.


----------

