Water Good Enough?

[andimav]

I have a 3ft tank that i have set up for fry but curently has 1 zebra danio and 1 red tailed shark in as needed somewere to put these 2 fish untill neighbour takes them, the tank has just finished being cycled and has had the 2 fish in for about 3-4days now.

I am taking delivery of 3 LAKE MALAWI CICHLIDS
1 LARGE SPOTTED CATFISH this evening and want to know if i can just put them in this tank? There is a tank with the fish but i can not manage to keep anywere near even half the water from the tank.

Is this ok as i dont know that much about these fish but want to learn and have been reading up but can not realy find anything that realy helps me with this dilemma.

 

[tttnjfttt]

you may have more luck asking this in the african cichlid section. PM a mod and ask them to move the post.

 

[dazcoops]

african chiclids are very very hardy, they will pretty much live in toilet water.

 

[guppy_man]

Daz african cichlids have to have clean water dont they?

thats what ive read

 

[dazcoops]

no not really iv seen a malawi tank with nitrite and nitrate at the top end of the scale and the fish were ok, it was like it for about 3 weeks. their not gonna survive ages in water like that but thet will have a good go at it! i never used to do water changes on my malawi tank it was running for about 2 years and they were breading. they are very hardy. with all fish you should at least a water change every 2 weeks, or so they say. they are a good fish to mature tanks.

 

[andimav]

Thanx for those replys guys.
i have put one of the cichlids in the tank and has so far (12hrs) loved it. I have sinse found out that PH should be around or as high to 8 as you can get it but anything after 7 is good enough and apparentyly that is one of the only differances between the "community" tank water and "cichlid" tank water.

My PH is 7.4

So im asuming this is fine but obviously they are hardy, the previous keeper of these fish did not clean or do anything with the tank for over 2 months and they lived in there very happily.

Do i just change the water as normal, with de-clorinator and the normal water treatments or do i just put tap water in?

Thanx

 

[dazcoops]

no still use de-clorinator and what ever else you use. probably best to change water with r-o, less algee build up.

 

[Ferris]

no not really iv seen a malawi tank with nitrite and nitrate at the top end of the scale and the fish were ok, it was like it for about 3 weeks. their not gonna survive ages in water like that but thet will have a good go at it! i never used to do water changes on my malawi tank it was running for about 2 years and they were breading. they are very hardy. with all fish you should at least a water change every 2 weeks, or so they say. they are a good fish to mature tanks.

Many New World cichlids are hardy but the same is not always true of Africans. They will certainly not survive for long with high nitrate/nitrite and i'm afraid that the above is very bad advice. No fish should be subjected to those conditions anyway.

 

[dazcoops]

that wasnt advice i was giving! your right no fish should be subjected to that. all i said is that will survive, and they will, as long as the fish arnt babies.

thier a good fish to mature a tank and a good fish for beginners because they are hardy and will take the usuall mistakes of a beginner, like over stocking to quick and over feeding.