What pH, KH, and GH do you keep your Malawi cichlids

I'm curious what water parameters others keep their MalawI cichlids in. I've had two recent red zebra deaths and am wondering if buffering the water may help. It was suggested in another thread in the disease forum. I currently have crushed coral in my filter and a large amount of holey rock in the tank but that only gets me to pH of 7.8, and KH and GH of around 6. My tap is around 7.5 with a KH of 5-6 and GH around 4. I'm reading up on some of the rift lake buffers out there and some of the homemade varieties. One concern I have with these is the salt content and if it will affect my syno multI cats.

I typically believe in the stable water and no chemical approach but if it will lower the stress levels in my tank I'm willing to try it.

 

I keep my tanks at the following.
PH 8.0
GH 12
KH 10

I use Seachems Cichlid salt and baking soda to achieve this. It takes 3/8 teaspoon of lake salt and 1 teaspoon of baking soda in 5 gallons of my tap water to get there.

Crushed coral and Texas Holly Rock are great buffers but the problem is if you are changing large volumes of water every week they don't have time to dissolve and help your water. Also you are putting different ph water in your tank at every water change. You want to match new water to the old water as close as possible during changes.

Carbonate hardness (kh) is what keeps your PH stable as acids and bases are added to your tank. A stable PH is probably the most important thing in your tank or any tank for that matter. 6 is much to low in my opinion.

 

Thanks Greentea101. Have you ever tried any of the homemade mixes with salt and epsom salt? Also, do you have any catfish in your tank?

 

Yes I have used the home made stuff. It worked fine but like I said in your other thread half the fun in keeping these fish for me is matching the lake water as close as I can. After all the reading I did I found that the Seachem salt to come very close. I ended up have to use some baking soda to get the ph and kh were I wanted it with my water though.

I have used baking soda, Epsom salt, and Instant Ocean in the past. I just find a mix of Seachem salt and baking soda to work best for me.

I have 6 syno cats and they are just fine.

On a side note I have mostly F1 fish so they have lived in water like mine since birth.

Here is a link with some nice information.

 

Oops. I decided to go with the homemade mixture until I can order the real stuff. I must have miscalculated. I added a small amount over the course of a few hours. I measured to see if I could see a difference yet. My pH was at 8.1, KH was about 9 and and GH at 8. Not bad numbers but much faster than I had planned.

My cichlids seem to be out and active. I just hope it doesn't stress my syno multis too much. They are supposedly wild caught so I worry about how they deal with this sort of thing. It probably isn't really different than acclimating them when they come from the store.

 

Ok now I would wait 24 hours before making any more adjustments. Also keep track of what you are doing so when it comes time to change water you can match the new water with your tank.

 

I turned the lights off and all the synos are out and swimming. I can already tell a difference. All of the fish are interacting more and aggression seems to be up a bit. I'm taking that as a good sign.

 

Just keep a watchful eye. Wait 24 hours and retest. Your PH and kh look good. Just work on gh.

 

Thanks. I need to do some more testing to see where I messed up.

 

Figured it out. I tested the salt mix on tap water and not tank water. Since I have the crushed coral and rocks my KH was already raised a bit.

So this seems to raise a new issue. When I premix I'm not sure what to aI'm for. I'm concerned if I mix the water to match the tank the pH might go up once it goes through the crushed coral a bit. I might need to experiment with small water changes.

 

Definitely experiment with small changes.