Reply To: Chris’ African/mbuna Journal

[L777]

aquaholic,
when I kept cichlids (mostly mbuna types), it seemed like I could never get the tank past the brown algae stage. I changed the water at least 80% weekly (usually more), and didn’t overfeed. Having cichlids meant no plants (they’d tear them out or tear them up) to soak up the organics and such. I’ve noticed a lot of other people’s cichlid tanks end up brown-coated as well. BN plecos helped a bit. I think the high pH hard water (my tap at the time was naturally suited to Africans without further conditioning) contributed to the problem. The tank was a 55 gallon with piled slate and cleaned field rock, some gravel on the bottom for the fish to dig around in, and a pair of large power filters hanging on the back.

Have you encountered this also? Is there a good solution that doesn’t involve expensive revolving use of disposable sorbent media?
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My demasoni experience matches your advice — I had two plus a half dozen salousi’s, the first male salousi to get bigger than the rest beat them all up, especially the salousi’s that tried to turn blue.