As long as the shells are not contaminated with something, you will be fine.
The will in fact help to keep your water buffered. If they were South
American cichlids and you were trying to keep your water at neutral or
slightly acidic, I would say not to add them. The truth of the matter is,
that pH does not matter a whole lot. You do not want it to be fluctuating
all of the time but as long as it is between 6 and 8.5 or so, cichlids will
be fine (with the acception of Discus and Angel Fish). The fish have been
breed in a hatchery most likely; and they probably did not take any special
measures to mimic rift lake conditions. They will be more colorful if your
tank water resembles that of the rift lake from which they came.

"Alan Silver" wrote in message
...
Hello,

We have just come back from holiday and, having done the obligatory days
on the beach, have returned with a small collection of pleasant shells.
These came from the North-East coast of England if it makes any
difference.

Is there any problem with putting these in my cichlid tank ? Obviously I
would wash them first, but do I need to do anything else ?

TIA

--
Alan Silver
PSG Fish Tanks - http://fish.alansilver.co.uk/


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