Salty Cichlids

[FishyPastor]

I went to my nearby pet store and the employee there stated that African Cichlids come from brackish water environments. I never heard of this before, so I was wondering if this is true or at least is it true for some species of african cichlids. usually brackish fish are mollies etc spcies.:goldfish:

[Drumachine09]

You can use natural cichlid lake salts to buffer the ph, hardness, and alkalinity, but I have never heard of a malawi being brackish.

[kaybee]

The Rift Lake african cichlids originate from high-mineral content, high pH, alkaline environments, none of which are brackish.

[William]

If you want to keep cichlid in bracksih water you should look at asian cichlids like the diamond cichlid.

[rangur1]

african cichlids are from FRESH water rift lakes that are alkaline in nature. i think this nimrod at the store confused cichlid salts with salts used for salt/brackish setups. be careful buying fish from this store because no experianced aquarist would confuse the two. livestock in this store could be suffering from this workers lack of experiance.

[FishyPastor]

Thank you for the responses I will be verry careful.

[Dixie]

They are not brackish but can tolerate some salt. Epsome salt is sometimes used for constipation and mild cases of bloat, table salt can be used to treat ick, and as mentioned above there is a cichlid salt that some people use. I've only used salts medicinally.