What is the best substrate for cichlids.. sand, gravel, crushed coral?

I'd recommend any sand but not too fine sand because fine sand could damange your emperor 400 (the spinning device).

I've had luck with pool filter sand, make sure it's 100% silica. If your local tap water is lower in PH, i'd suggest add crushed coral because crushed coral will pull your ph and hardness up. Mbunas like ph between 7.9 to 8.5. Pool filter sand don't build a posion gas on the bottom. Play sand will build a posion gas but it can be avoided by stirring your sand to release the gas once a month.

Type of sand is really your own personal preferences. I've found gravel harder to clean with Mbunas. Mbunas prefers sand and i've noticed big differences between Gravel and Sand with them that's why i switched to sand.

you would need to add another hang on back filter. One emperor gives you 400 gallon per hour so you'd like to have another filter to make about 10times over per hour. I'd recommend Aquaclear, since you can make it solo for mechanical filtration. Just put the sponges on the bottom then in the middle add more 100% poly floss can be found in you local fish store then discard carbon and ammonia bags, buy Seachem Matrix and put some in a mesh bag and lay on the top of floss. It will make your water very clean and clear. Since Seachem Matrix can be used repeatively and does not need to replace every month. Just rinse the sponges and the Seachem Matrix in a pail of tank water so you don't kill baterica. Just remove the dirty floss out and put new ones in.

large Aquaclear will give you flexbility of modify your own filter media to suit your needs.

Just a warning, the Emperor filter medias will get clogged up fast and it's quite expensive to replace oftten.

Cichlid Substrate

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RE:

What is the best substrate for cichlids.. sand, gravel, crushed coral?

I have a emperor 400 filter, and will get eggcrate for the glass' protection....

What's best for cichlids... sand, gravel or crushed coral?

I should mention they are mbunas, lake malawi.. yelow lab, kenyi, and electric blue ahli

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It does increase the pH and hardness, you are exactly right. Tetras prefer and do better with softer, lower pH water so I would really recommend against using this substrate for tetras. It would be good for african cichlids, but a really poor choice for tetras, grab a few bags of yor favorite color gravel instead. You and your tetras will be much happier in the long run. MM

Due to the nature of the water required by cichlids many people suggest using a crushed coral, because it will help buffer the PH to where they need it. When I kept them (I moved on to Salt Water) I used gravel, a med-small size and placed crushed coral in one of the bins of my filter. It was a large size penguin filter where you could place whatever medium you liked in one of the bins.

Sand is probably the best substrate in my opinion as most african cichlids enjoy sand sifting (grabbing mouthfuls of sand, selecting food particles from it and spitting out the sand). Many love to dig in sand as well. If you want to observe natural behavior, sand is the best.

By the way, the electric blue 'ahli' (sciaenochromis fryeri) you're considering on getting are not mbuna, they're actually carnivorous haps (not to be confused with a mbuna with a similar name: electric blue johanni (melanochromis johanni). The electric blues 'ahli's' get up to 7".

Cichlids like to terrorize their substrate - rooting about in it. Small pebbles loosely scattered on top of gravel will encourage this behavior.

I've got cichlids and we use gravel/small stones. We actually collected them ourselves on a riverbank and supplemented them with large rocks/stones stacked up (think Stonehenge underwater) to give the fish hiding places, since they love to hide.

im not sure about your cichlids, but i have cichlids in my tank also, oscar,parrot fish and angels,even two silver dollars, i have always used gravel and they have thrived in it for over a year, not to say that others wont work. i use the same filter also.whatever your using i would stick with it as long as your fish are healthy.

All of the above. Add a few Marbles too Cichlids are great football (socker in the US) fans.