Pufferpunk;2032460; said:
NO, African rift cichlids are not BW fish. I've alreay explained the difference. A few tablespoons of plain salt, does not BW make. You cannot judge stocking by what a LFS keeps in their tanks--those are only holding tanks for selling the fish, not their permanant homes. Usually extremely overstocked too.
Well I wanna try having brackish water fish . I wanna convert my 30 gallon freswater tank into a Brackish tank.
I read the thread about "Brackish Water Setup". So I need marine salt and a Hydrometer I think....To measure the Specific Gravity of the water..Right?
Now I still have left over from 3 years ago in a bucket, Crushed coral substrate as well as Whole Corals (about 3 of them) , can I use that as my substrate in a brackish water tank? Does Crushed coral lose its function after a while or is it still a good buffer?
If crushed coral is an absolutely horrible idea! Whats my other alternative ? Sand?
Can I keep my same filter for a brackish water tank? Its a hang on Penguin 125 for a 30 gallon tank? Or should i pull out of the closet the Emperor 400

....It might be too much filtration and suck in the fish lol
When you swtich from Freshwater to Brackish, do you need to recycle? Or is my beneficial bacteria still around?
I think I need a heater because they like warm temperatures right?
Keeping pH high shouldnt be a problem if my substrate buffer maintains it right?
Does the marine salt raise the pH automatically? Or is there something that needs to be added to the water in order to raise pH?
Sorry for being such a pain in the butt with these newbie questions, but I wanna do things right and not look like an idiot box making threads asking questions like "Why did my fish die!"

I rather ask the experts here on MFK which is you guys!
So whats in the shopping bag lol ....a Hydrometer, Marine Salt, possibly new substrate ?? Anything else?
Thanks
Manny