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What's in Malawi salt? Is it just gh/kh/ph adjusting stuff? If so, is it an easy alternative to balancing RO right and pH plus etc?

I use RO water for my tanganyikan tank, and I add RO right and pH Plus and keep an eye on the kh too. If I used malawi salt instead, would it save me the hassle of doing them individually or is it something I would use as well as all the rest?

Hi,
I would strongly urge you not to add salt to that tank.
Instead, use crushed oyster shells, or crushed dolomite
as the substrate. That will automatically change the RO
water to hard water with Ca and Mg leaching into it.


Read this information:
http://aquascienceresearch.com/APInfo/MBuna.htm

As an aside, I'm curious why you are using RO water in a
freshwater tank. The use of RO or Distilled Water, means
that you have to "reconstruct" the water to include the
necessary elements, and nutrients, that the processes
remove. RO or distilled water as a "top off" for
evaporation is fine as the elements and nutrients don't
evaporate, but a tank of 100% RO or distilled is not good
for fish or plants.

Frank


Last edited by FRANK at 02-May-2005 13:32

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I'm using RO water because I had terrible algae problems in all my tanks and fouond that using RO water helped (maybe there's some trace element in the tap water that the algae likes). The tank has a lot of ocean rock in it and some crushed coral mixed with the substrate which helps keep the water nice and hard but I do add to the water used for water changes so that the pH etc doesn't creep down.