Your opinions please

[davez104]

Hi all,

Talking to my LFS owner today about buffers and salts etc for african cichlids and he told me he uses these balance blocks in his tanks. They are for marine use but he says they are perfectly safe to use with africans. According to the pack:

Adds three types of calcium

Adds 71 trce minerals

Buffers pH to 8.2-8.3

Assists coral growth

Thought I would ask the experts here if any have tried this sort of thing and if it was a success/failure. Are there better or simpler ways to do it? I've read briefly about the home made salts people use and may think about going down this track to save a few dollars. Anybody else use this with success?

Thanks for the help.

Dave.

[wui39]

Home made is ok just don't overdose and you should be all right.

[Colfish]

hi Dave

is this for tangs, malawi's ?

what are your current water paremeters and what do use for buffers atm

cheers; C

[davez104]

Hi,

Its for Tanganyikans. I currently use aquasonic rift lake conditioner, It brings the ph up to 8.0-8.5, can't remember exactly what the hardess is but its round about right. Just having trouble getting my usual conditioner and was wondering if these balance blocks would work.

Thanks.

Dave.

[YeW]

For virtually all rift lake cichlids (except Tropheus/Cyps and perhaps a few other touchy species) I'd recommend a simple buffering substrate.

A 0.5 - 1.0 cm layer of shell grit or marble chips (from Minicrete) is all the buffering you'll ever need. Some people advocate a buffer be added as well - I think this is largely folkloric and not based on any testable reality.

This is true for all malawi cichlids - and a most common tanganyikan cichlids.

[davez104]

Thanks for that. I have beach sand as substrate, but I think its a silica sand rather than a carbonate type sand, so probably no buffering there. I do keep a bag full of calcium carbonate in the sump so that probably helps a little. I know its not considered necessary, but was thinking more along the lines of the salts that would be released from the balance blocks. Would they be similar to those found in rift liake salts or could some of them possibly be harmful? Might just orser a bucket of the aquasonic stuff from ben and keep doing things the way I have been, it's worked for me so far.

Thanks.

Dave.

[trofius]

Hey Dave not sure what exactaly is in those blocks, but from what i have read lake tanganyika has a relatively low sodium levels, which is what you get from normal salt, ocean stuff.

and if it is working at the moment dont mess with it to much, unless you want to trial it on a smaller tank and see how it goes first.

[YeW]

more importantly - what's going into this tank?

[davez104]

If you mean what fish are in there, well here goes, its an 8x2x2:

4 ventralis 1M 3F

2 spilopterus

9 descampsii

3 regani

3 attenuatus

5 tropheus

4 calvus

1 compressiceps

5 multipunctatus

2 petricola

2 bristlenose

The pack has a list of all the 71 trace elements found in the balance blocks but not sure if that is a complete list of all ingredients. Sodium is listed, but there are no quantities either.

Thanks.

Dave.