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see... i have this cyphoitlapia frontosa, and a Aulonocara Jacobfrebergeri. i know that they are from different lakes right? what should i balance the Ph at to suit both lake conditons. plus i use RO water, should it still be necessary to add my magnesium calsium and strontium and should i buy them seperatly or in a premixed solution? and i have a protein skimmer on my freshwater tank! it keeps it sparkling! do you think that it is very neccesary?




this is a question(s) my friend ask but im not able to answer it..... can i get some help here?

The fish are from different lakes, but the lakes have the same sort of ph and hardness levels, so that's not really an issue. Compatibility sometimes is though, and I'd be mostly concerned about tank size for the frontosa. Purists (like myself!) don't really advocate mixing the lakes, but it can be done without any BIG problems, depending on the overall stock (frontosas like to be in groups generally, and require quite a large tank).

RO water softens water considerably, so it's not the best for rift lake tanks (which ideally require hard water and ph of 8+). Additives will probably be necessary if the ph and hardness are really low, but usually it's more important to keep the ph stable than to have it perfectly suited to the fish. Your friend might like to try having something calciferous in the tank - like limestone rocks, or crushed coral, shell or aragonite sand substrate - which will help keep the ph and hardness up.

Protein skimmers do nothing on freshwater tanks - unless the water is REALLY hard. They don't do harm either, so if it is attached to a good filter like a wet/dry trickle filter (as I used to have on a malawi tank), don't worry about taking it off. But if it's a single unit it's probably just taking up space and power unnecessarily.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. - Oscar Wilde

whatever it was a joke so yeah....... i was mad