Recently (on another forum) there was a debate with regards to KH having such a large effect on the color of Tropheus, and seeing as I can no longer post my follow up (there), here it is. (here) mr.green

According to my colony of tropheus a high KH has had zero effect on their color.

My KH was raised to 17 dh for several weeks, no change in color, and is now back down to 8 KH, with a pH of 7.4, (and has been for approx 2 weeks now) with no loss of color whatsoever. Once my water treatment plant gets things back in line after their recent upgrade, my pH will be back at approx 8.0,and the kH should rise slightly as well. No more buffers for me, I'm going back to keeping things stable. The color angle was something I just had to test for myself, and I'm now 100% satisfied that KH plays absolutely no role whatsoever in the coloration of Tropheus.

IMO the pH/KH/GH are not nearly as important as many people feel, with water stabilty being what one should really be focussing on. Several months back I was reading where someone had been keeping their Rift Lake cichlids at 6.8 for 3 years (with good color, and breeding) and after reading several posts on a cichlid forum they decided they had best 'adjust' their pH up to 8.0. My advice was to leave well enough alone. As long as their water parameters were stable, and the fish were healthy, why mess with success?

I recently stumbled on to this article by Rusty Wessel about pond raised Africans in Belize, where the pH is approx 6.5 year round. Even Tropheus duboisi were breeding in these ponds.
http://www.cichlidae.com/article.php?id=105

As long as the fish aren't wild caught, and are properly acclimatized to your local water conditions, I have a sense that they will thrive in almost any tap water found in North America with no need to 'adjust' anything.

The only thing I use in my water is Aqua Plus. To remove cholrine and such. Only on water changes. I think messing with the water to much can cause some serious probs. So I agree. And my cichlids have really nice color.
Pete

I have to totally agree with you.

Consistency is the most important factor involved

I didnt want to be the one to say this from the start, but with many artifical ecosystems (tank set-ups), the more chemicals and products you use to adjust your water parameters up and down, the more stress you put on your stock.

African cichlids are hardy fish that are able to adapt to their water conditions much better than more fragile species.

I believe there is big money in the "additives/ water conditioners" market, however its been my experience that after years of not testing or adding chemicals to my water I have seen no ill effects but rather have seen my fish breed and thrive.

I agree up to the point that I believe consistency is more important than obtaining the ideal water conditions as your fish can and will adapt. I do however believe that it is also important that whatever your consistency is, it should fall within acceptable parameters. A consistant pH of 4.7 would be unacceptable for Frontosas and so on. Good article though.

Dawg thumbs up

While I agree that stability in water parameters is key to keeping Africans healthy.
In my own experience, my tap water is ultra soft. 3 KH does not lead to a stable ph. I have to buffer the water with baking soda to keep the ph stable. If I didn't my ph would crash to about 4.5 within about 48 hours. holymoly

I think that people from different areas of the country who have different groundwater parameters have to pay attention to these values if you want to keep these fish alive and healthy. Not everyone is "blessed" with hard cichlid friendly water.

Yes, of course, if your tap water parameters are off the chart, such as a KH of only 3, then one should definitely take steps to ensure that the pH remains staple by using some form of buffering. No argument there.

My point was simply that the vast majority of people have no need to tweak their local tap water in an attempt to match the 'exact' water conditions in the rift lakes.
To be honest, from what I've read on various forums over the past few years, the vast majority of cichlid keepers don't even understand the basic principles of water chemistry. Unless your tank is very highly stocked, even with a pH of 7.0, and a KH of 6, with a weekly 25% water change those parameters should remain very stable.

Many people don't even know what the actual parameters of their local tap water is, but will go out & buy products such as "cichlid trace elements" and add them willy-nilly to their tank water in the belief that this is somehow going to help their fish. Of course the companies that market these products bank on this fact. Those same companies will even go so far as to tell consumers how much to use on a weekly basis, as though they somehow know what the trace mineral content is of your tap water. Doh!

Most of these buffers etc will place your water into a state of ionic imbalance for approx 24 hours, and this is also why these companies will inform you to wait 24 hours before retesting your pH. From Kent Marine: That's nice, so for 24 hrs after each & every water change your fish are in unstable conditions.


The main reason for starting this thread was to clear up the idea of a higher KH somehow causing colors in fish to 'pop', as it does no such thing. A sudden change in the water parameters may trigger a sudden spawning urge, which of course could indeed lead to a sudden increase in color (and aggression) in your fish (such as tropheus) but that can be achieved by nothing more than a large water change using cooler than normal tap water. (rainy season trigger)


My advice is to contact ones local water utility & get a detailed water analysis report before adding anything to the water.

Amen

you guys have some good points. Personally I dont add much to my water at all.

With my juvie or fry tanks, I add chlorine remover when I do water changes. Occasionally some non-iodized table salt

that was a good read. I have to say that I have seen a lot of conversation about checking the KH on aquariums but I have never done this. I also do not add trace elements or buffers to any of my tanks. I do use a chlorine remover when I do water changes but in general I do not mess with my tanks.

My tanks almost run themselves , I do not have fish with any illnesses or fish that are dropping dead , they all look great and most of them will not stop breeding, so for me the way i do it works for me. I do check my PH here and there only because out of the tap at home our PH in like 5. good for discus but not for the africans.

I echo Pseudo,

A very interesting thread, very informative. But I too am guilty of not checking KH, PH in any of my tanks. Probably due to the fact that my tanks are not overly crowded. My fish are almost ALWAYS looking healthy (great colors).

Maybe you can say I am lucky or just plain stupid for not checking, but until I see a drastic change in personality, floating fish, fish not spawning, I don't think I need to change a thing with what I do besides the basic cleaning.

Thought I'd dig up this antique of a thread.

Anyways thought it was a good read on how stability is the key.

I agree with much of the above, within reason. Most fish are much more adaptable than many articles (and fishkeepers) give them credit for. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with trying to mimic something approximating the native conditions of your fish if you know what you're doing and it does not take a "mad scientist" to add some simple buffer to your water to stabilize the pH or maintain chemistry at a reasonable level.

However, conditions in many natural habitats vary more than many (maybe most) people realize, matching native conditions can be much more complicated than targeting certain pH or hardness numbers, and there are some common and significant misconceptions out there about certain habitats-- such as the idea that Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika have a lot of salt, which they don't (they do have minerals, but fairly low salinity). So, some of the people who think they're matching native conditions might be farther off than they think.

For some species the pH range for spawn survival success is more limited than the range the fish themselves can handle. And there are other considerations that can affect how easy or hard your tank is to maintain, how much filtration or water changes you need, how many fish you can stock, how susceptible to illness they are, etc.

There's more to an aquarium than just your fish. There are two things many people don't know. One is that ammonia is less toxic at lower pH and lower temps. BUT-- and this is a big one, your good bacteria are much more efficient at pH roughly between 7 and 8 (maybe a little higher, exact numbers for this vary according to source) than they are outside that range.

http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Nitrogen_Cycle.html




It's no wonder some people have trouble with discus, for example, or end up having to do all those water changes-- pH below 7 is bad for nitrification (only 30% efficiency at pH 6.5, practically stops at 6.0), then they feed them protein heavy foods (like beefheart) partly because they've been told discus are carnivorous and need a high protein diet (in the wild they eat much more plant material than people think ). It's no wonder abundant water changes are needed in a tank where your good bacteria are inhibited or practically non-functional due to low pH at the same time the fish are turned into ammonia factories by being fed too much protein (especially non-aquatic protein).

...SO, I buffer my water that comes out of the tap at about 6.6 pH to keep it in the mid 7s. The bottom line imo is if you keep your bacteria happy they'll help keep your tank happy.