Malawimania
Members
Just arrived 180 lbs of Aragonite delivered to my house, it's going in my 220 tonight. I've had silica sand for quite some time now, but decided to switch it up for a couple reasons.
First reason being I wanted to go with a brighter look in the tank. I have two 48" 1W Beamworks LED lights, hoping to see an increased overall level of brightness.
Second reason is PH. I purchased a few full grown haps and peacocks from a guy in Brooklyn, NY. Every fish in his 180 gallon tank showed stunning color. He was feeding his fish NLS, which is exactly what I feed my fish, however his PH was 8.0 where as mine is 7.5. The guy had Natures Ocean Aragonite for his substrate.
The Protomelas Lobodichromis Hertae and Aulonocara Malaeri were Full of color in his tank, unfortunately they lost much of their bright color when introduced to my tank. I know fish are extremely stressed when introduced into a brand new environment. It's been roughly 6 weeks since the new fish have made my tank their home, yet their color has yet to improve.
Please don't get my wrong I have some very beautiful and healthy fish in my tank with great color, just would love to see some more color out of a few fish
I guess my question is do you think it's possible to see improvement in the fishes colors? Is their anyone who may have switched from silica to aragonite? Do you think it's possible to achieve an increased level of PH closer to 8.0 by swapping the substrates out? Size of tank is 96"x 24"x 22" 220 gallons 180 lbs of aragonite.
Looks like I'm getting ready to find out either way. I will post the results of my substrate experiment to help fellow hobbyist.
-Steve
First reason being I wanted to go with a brighter look in the tank. I have two 48" 1W Beamworks LED lights, hoping to see an increased overall level of brightness.
Second reason is PH. I purchased a few full grown haps and peacocks from a guy in Brooklyn, NY. Every fish in his 180 gallon tank showed stunning color. He was feeding his fish NLS, which is exactly what I feed my fish, however his PH was 8.0 where as mine is 7.5. The guy had Natures Ocean Aragonite for his substrate.
The Protomelas Lobodichromis Hertae and Aulonocara Malaeri were Full of color in his tank, unfortunately they lost much of their bright color when introduced to my tank. I know fish are extremely stressed when introduced into a brand new environment. It's been roughly 6 weeks since the new fish have made my tank their home, yet their color has yet to improve.
Please don't get my wrong I have some very beautiful and healthy fish in my tank with great color, just would love to see some more color out of a few fish
I guess my question is do you think it's possible to see improvement in the fishes colors? Is their anyone who may have switched from silica to aragonite? Do you think it's possible to achieve an increased level of PH closer to 8.0 by swapping the substrates out? Size of tank is 96"x 24"x 22" 220 gallons 180 lbs of aragonite.
Looks like I'm getting ready to find out either way. I will post the results of my substrate experiment to help fellow hobbyist.
-Steve