Best Malawi Substrate?

Re: Whats the best Substrates?

no replys?

 

Re: Whats the best Substrates?

play sand = cheap does that count lol

 

Re: Whats the best Substrates?

you would want a darker substrate to get the rich colors from the fish. a brownish sub would be more natural to their territory. i use the very fine cichlid substrate. rinse rinse rinse.

 

Re: Whats the best Substrates?

The argamax is great for all the african cichlids and you can get 30 lbs for $15 to $20. Your tank will be cloudy for a few days but after that you will love it.

 

I had this dilemma when setting up a new tank. Most people reccomend crushed coral or coral sand to assist in pH buffering. I bought chemicals for that and settled with a black sand that was flecked with some colour from stray pieces here and there. That plus a black background and dark rocks makes my fish look very vivid and colouful!

Try it out. It works a treat

Roggs

 

I also went with black sand,i picked up a 50# bag from a place that sells matter for sand blasting for $9,Works gr8,in the process of switching over my other tanks.colors just pop,specially my xmas fulus

 

i love play sand, it is cheap, looks nice and clean.

 

i used home depot Playsand and black natural looking stepping stones made from brick that i stacked in the tank to build a huge condo/hotel each of all my have there very own dorm very cool, i like the blacked out idea to make the colors pop,i paited the back of my take an awesome light blue like at the LFS but ill do my next tank with the back painted black, black sand and the same bricks mbuna just love them to death. i know you already put your tank together but if your like me youll want to recreate the natural aspects of lake malawi, i started with black and purple gravel and a huge wrecked ship, looked to kiddie though. the sand and rocks look more realistic and stress reliving for me!!!

 

i use playsand works great

 

I use aragonite, kinda pricey tho.

 

I use pool filter sand..nice and cheap.

 

I use a mix of regular aquarium gravel and crushed coral. They like a PH of 7.8-8.5, and this seems to buffer our well water just right.

 

Isn't sand a pain as far as the fish stirring it up and getting sucked into filter ?

My tank is not set up yet (getting it today - 55 gall ) but filter which I have for it is a Marineland Emperor 400 (might add a second).

I love the sand look but thought fish would stir it up to much and at min hard to keep clean .

Thank you

 

I have aragonite sand in my 150; it takes a bit more effort to vacuum it but there's a flat head for the Python that keeps you from sucking it all up. I haven't had problems with the filters (Emperor, Fluval 304 submersible and Aquaclear 110).
And yeah, the fishes like to dig through the sand, but it hasn't caused any issues.

 

Thank you very much. It is a nice look which will now probably go with.

 

I really don't think African cichlids would do well with stingrays. Aren't scaleless fish a pain to treat for injuries? Knowing how mbuna work, there would be a good chance that they would tear out the eyes or pick at the rays until they died of shock, disease, and/or injury. Peacocks and utaka-types might not bother them but is it really worth the risk?

 

Rays? How did I miss that?
No way you can keep rays and Malawi cichs. Or are we just getting into a game of "Telephone"
here?