Black.J

and what TDS do they need?

Slug

Just keep it stable. I personally don't find the need to play with it to get them to breed but Anything in the 8-8.5 range should be good if you want to mess with it.

Angela_96

I keep my pH at 8.0 (its very consistant and has been since I set up my first lake malawi tank) I used crushed coral and limestone in all but one tank, the other has crushed coral and lava rock. My yellow labs breed like rabbits. Good water quality has a lot to do with it.

Black.J

does the salts in the water have anything to do with them breeding

Angela_96

I don't use the salts at all, I used crushed coral for the subsrate and that was all. They aren't a nessasary chemical for your tank.

Black.J

thanks steve did you just get random rocks from the ground ocean etc and wash them and then put them in your tanks?

do you place them to make a rocky affect ?

Angela_96

I bought the bagged crushed coral at the LFS, you can get it through online fish supply places as well. Its the same stuff you buy for a saltwater tank.

I also use limestone (which here in TN we have everywhere in our rivers/lakes) for our caves it helps w/ the ph. I put lava rock in one of my tanks, you can usually buy that online and at lfs's as well.

If you collect any local rocks you need to treat them by scrubbing them down, and boiling them to kill any bugs, bacteria, etc. I treated all the local rocks that I collected.