23 replies to this topic

[coley]

Hi all, I'm keeping malawis in a 4 ft tank with natural gravel at the moment with some limestone rocks , I want to increase the Ph from 7.6 up into the 8.0/8.2 as I have found that this is the most common PH level malawi keepers are at (please correct me if i'm wrong here ).
So newly introduced fish are not stressed from the Ph increase.
Is it reasonble to add some CIM coral sand at say a hand full a day and keep testing or can i add more without risk of stressing out the Synos and Acei .
I dont want to totally change substrate but half and half is ok I guess.

Your help is greatly appreciated

Coley

[Neakit]

Hi, don't mix gravel and sand it will all turn bad eventually, just do an overhaul of the substrate and the malawi cichlids will love you for it, ps don't worry about stress caused by ph they get over it fast if its more like the water from lake malawi

[benckie]

CIM coral sand and lime sand is great for rasing the ph a little and keeping it there

[coley]

So if I've go this right I can just scoop out my gravel and back fill with coral sand , say 2 x 20kg bags should do it all at once with the Malawis in the tank .?
Is $25.00 for 20kg of CIM a good price or is there a better price south of the river.
How does the coral sand go when your vacumming does it get sucked up.

[Neakit]

make sure u wash it very well first and i recommend getting the fish out while u do the change over.

thats a damn good price too, i have just spent $50 a bag on coral sand for a marine and it needs 4 bags

[coley]

Thanks Neakit, just one last question so the malawis will be ok to put back in once the tank has settled down , say 24 hrs later

[Wacker]

Coley,

Don't worry yourself too much about ph and the effect on your malawi's. I only have a display tank at the moment, but I have kept and bred malawi's successfully, and I never checked Ph once!!
I had common old gravel, and half a dozen limestone rocks in the tank. I didn't have any deaths, and no fish got stressed whenever I added them to the tank. Quite often I would do water changes straight out of the hose without even using dechlorinator.

I'm sure the Ph from the tap should be fine if you've got some limestone in the tank, or like you mentioned lime sand.


Just my opinion

Wacker

[Cawdor]

Ph can easily be raised via 2 methods:

1. the cheap method - add bicarbonate, can be bought at any supermarket
2. the better method - add rift lake salts, I believe the common brand is Aquasonic? This will not only raise your pH but also buffer your water and raise the water hardness, which should be between 6-10 degrees for Malawis I think.

[coley]

Thanks to all who have shared thier knowledge keep it comming.

Cawdor, I have followed the directions on the Aquasonic container of Rift lake salt and yes it has raised my PH , I done this approx 3 weeks ago and have been adding it to my water changes as per the instructions.
PH is still at 7.6-8

[Mintox]

I think the aquasonic stuff ain't the best for raising the PH 7.8+. I tested my water after adding two heaped teaspoons in a 20l bucket and it was barely over 7.6. After adding the seachem buffer it went to 7.8.

[Cawdor]

I use it all the time on my tanks. On newly established tanks I add more than the usual dosis. My tapwater is about pH 7.4.
When I did my 550L tank I added just under half a kilo of that stuff over a period of 24h.

All my tanks are pH 8.2-8.3 and I haven't used anything else - it's pretty cheap too, a 1kg tub costs $18 and lasts me several months (I have 4 tanks).

Other powders may be more concentrated but they are dearer too from what I heard.

P.S.: bicarb works *really* well in raising the pH. Why don't you use that to raise it to your desired levels and then use rift lake salt to maintain?

[madasa]

Coley,

Don't worry yourself too much about ph and the effect on your malawi's. I only have a display tank at the moment, but I have kept and bred malawi's successfully, and I never checked Ph once!!
I had common old gravel, and half a dozen limestone rocks in the tank. I didn't have any deaths, and no fish got stressed whenever I added them to the tank. Quite often I would do water changes straight out of the hose without even using dechlorinator.

I'm sure the Ph from the tap should be fine if you've got some limestone in the tank, or like you mentioned lime sand.


Just my opinion

Wacker

The highlighted part is poor advice and something I strongly recommend no fishkeeper from following. Not having a go Wacker, if it works for you great, but there are newbies and chlorine or chloramine in tapwater is very poor for the health of ones fish.

[coley]

Thanks Madassa , all advise is good but once all taken in and the numerous books I have read the passage in red was not for me .
In your opinion / experiences is the sudden change from 7.6 to 8.0/8.2 ph to stressful for malawis providing all other water conditions are good.

[cobby]

Why would you not use water conditioner ? its cheap and no hassel

Regards Cobby

[madasa]

Thanks Madassa , all advise is good but once all taken in and the numerous books I have read the passage in red was not for me .
In your opinion / experiences is the sudden change from 7.6 to 8.0/8.2 ph to stressful for malawis providing all other water conditions are good.

I would acclimatize them gradually personally

[Cawdor]

Why would you not use water conditioner ? its cheap and no hassel
Regards Cobby

Some info on chlorine:
Max concentration of chlorine in drinking water, set by the Health Department, is 5mg/L. At those levels it becomes irritating to humans, especially when coming in contact with eyes.

In Perth, chlorine is added at the source at 1mg/L and arrives at the household at concentrations lower than that, the odour and taste threshold set by the water corporation is 0.6mg/L.
Source

Some research on the effect of chlorine on fish has shown that fish actively avoid chlorinated water at concentrations starting at 0.61mg/L and other publications list 0.5mg/L as dangerous. Keep in mind those are constant levels.

So in general circumstances, water arrives at your tap with max 0.6mg/L chlorine. The act of filling a bucket, or spraying it into the tank, sets more chlorine free. A 20% waterchange would thus result in max 0.12mg/L chlorine in your tank, which immediately starts evaporating, especially if the water is agitated by means of a spraybar or similar device.

Chloramine on the other hand does not evaporate, but is generally only added to water destined for long travel to country areas. It is more harmful to fish though and can only be removed by water conditioners.
In the book "Enjoying Cichlids" by Ad Konings, he writes that cichlids can generally endure a 30% water change with chlorinated water.

So using water conditioners is great, but not using any doesn't automatically mean harming your fish.

[madasa]

Interesting Tim but I'll stick to the conditioner. I wouldnt trust the chlorine concentration to be constant or for them to add chloramine without telling anyone.

Re the dilution of a relatively small amount into a large tank at waterchange also cuts no ice with me as over time there would be accumulation.

As Cobber said - why wouldnt you use it?

[Neakit]

chlorine breaks down to uv people

[benckie]

chlorine breaks down to uv people

why you think i always sugest uv,s ? its not because i have shares in the company

[Neakit]

by the sounds of things i think they should give some shares to you