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South American needs salt?


Trev76

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Hi everyone, im picking up a south american cichlid tank for my son tomorrow "as he is amazon mad"

The tank comes with a green severum, silver dollar, black ghost knife, pleco and oddly a blue moorii.

I have done about 8 hours of research on the web and have lernt a bit but info on Americans but its kind of drowned out by discussion on their African cousin's 

Im on tank water and it is 6.6pH, 0.0KH, 0.0GH, I have worked up to 7.8pH, 5.0KH, 12.0GH for drummed water to slowly change their water they have now witch is 8.2pH, 4KH, 14GH.

I used 1/2 a tsp of bi-carb and 1 1/2 tsp of epsom in 20lts to change my rain water and now the big question, do Americans like salt?

Best l can come up with is maybe...  

Thanks for any help as I'm a first time cichlid keeper and haven't kept any fish for the last 15 years. 

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Small amounts of salt will be beneficial to most cichlids. I put about half a cup of non iodised salt (regular table salt but the pack that says non iodized) every second water change of about 200-250 litres. (I'm not great with measuring.) The ghost knife probably wouldn't particularly enjoy it. But it's also not enough to really bother anyone.

Americans are always scrapping and the salt helps with healing time of minor injury. 

Once you have them established I would work on doing 10% changes twice a week direct from your water supply and ditch the bi carb/epsom salts completely. 

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South Americans Cichlids (Amazon) like soft/acid water....I wouldn't add any salt....particularly Sodium Chloride

the Blue Moorii prefers hard/Alkaline water

Central American Cichlids like harder water

I'm of the opinion...salt is ok with guppies, mollies and brackish water fish

Ok for medication as a salt bath....don't favour regular use in freshwater tanks....other than specific species mentioned

 

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:raisehand:  Hi Trev and welcome to ACE

most aquarium bred fish are very adaptable to tank conditions

and you are correct that the C moorii is the odd man out  in all

things but the water parameters at 8.2 pH

my opinion would be to have the tank running at approx. 7.4 pH

with the kH between 3-5

this is somewhat of a happy medium and requires less water tampering

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Thanks heaps for the replies, i have the fish home now.

I could only take 160lts of their water witch i think is probably enough since the nitrate reagent nearly went nuclear.

I trickled in 200lts and slowly dropped their ph to 7.8 and gh to 12 over the last 9hrs still have another 150 odd to go but it's nearly 3 in the morning and im call'n it.

Ps the natives are none to happy with the move...silver dollar is a special little snow flake, hes really sooking!

The rest are okay but only come out of the refuge I have made for them for a quick look then retreat back to safety, i think thats normal, they can keap their chill out spot till they relax a bit.

Trev   

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Try weekly 30% water changes with straight tank water.....they should really pop with the drop in conductivity at each water change

7.8 pH and gH 12 is too high for South Americans.....would be Great for Central Americans

pH under 7 and gH under 5....IMO

 

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After a bit of a hunger strike I went to the fish shop and got some frozen blood worm and now everyone is happy and out and about but still not eating the API floating large cichlid pellets the previous owner said they eat.

im going to look at what people feed their fish.

IMG_2877.JPG

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Mate with those fish I wouldn't worry if they don't get back to feeding for 2-3 days. 

Don't let them trick you in to giving them too much bloodworm regularly as you risk them refusing pellet food longer term. They'll eat the pellet when they're hungry. None of these fish are notoriously bad eaters. 

Heaps of info on foods here. But generally stick with quality/reputable brands and you'll be fine. 

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I had a thought that may happen but one good feed to bring everyone out of there funk and it has worked, no more hiding or laying on the bottom, i will have to be careful though because I'm a bit of a soft touch.

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