~Roy wrote:

Wrong stuff......Arag Alive is meant for a alk type tank, and IIRC
don;t ciclids prefer acidic range? All the benefical bacteria will die
in freshwater, and make cycling the tank a long time affair. It would
also probably buffer your water to much to get correct ph
levels.......

On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 04:08:51 GMT, "Kay-Bee"
wrote:


===Recently ordered several 20lbs bags of Eco-Complete African Cichlid
===Substrate (the sand variety) ...I'll be setting up a 125-gallon tank in the
===near future for Yellow Lab, Acei and Socolofi.
===
===Well, they seemingly sent me CaribSea's Indo-Pacific black Arag-Alive
===aragonite reef sand ("with natural and selected marine bacteria") by mistake
===(not sure if it was an intentional substitute as it's sold at practically
===twice the price of the Eco-complete in their catalog).
===
===This is my first time using sand as a substrate. Any idea if this partiular
===marine sand (apparently intended for marine and reef aquariums and packed in
===water) will be compatible with Malawi lake cichlids (specifically for the
===aforementioned species)?
===
===kaybee
===
===



==============================================
Put some color in your cheeks...garden naked!
"The original frugal ponder"
~~~~ }((((o ~~~~~~ }{{{{o ~~~~~~~ }(((((o

Hi Roy,

FYI Malawi cichlids prefer hard, alkaline water - main reason I went for
these rather than SA cichlids. My Malawi tank has Ocean Rock along with
a substrate that is a mix of coral sand and tropical marine sand - pH is
around 8 - haven't got round to measuring the hardness yet. Tank has
been up and running 9 months and is overrun with baby Mbunas :-)

Gill