Hi, can anyone answer this for me...I'm setting up a 450L malawi cichlid tank and i was wondering if i was to use a different substrate to crushed coral(was thinking of normal aquarium sand)would i have enough buffering effect if i was just to use coral in the filter baskets.
I'm going to be using 2 external filters.

Thanks for any replys.

Really depends on the source water, what your using to fill the tank, do you know if the water is hard, has a high PH etc???

PH is 7.4 not sure about the hardness of the water.
Livin in the dublin area if you happened to know what it's like around there

its a bit hard to tell at the moment.. in 5 months my water has gone from PH 7.8 TDS 800 to PH 7 TDS 200 your water will be very much specific to you locality.

Going on what you posted and addiing crushed coral t the filter will be something you will have to try by adding some in then measuring the PH and Hardness.. if you go to your local fish shop and buy a GH (general hardness) & KH (carbonate hardness) test kit. get your tank ready and add the crushed corals a bit at a time and post the results.. there are plenty of people on here to help..

have a look at this link if you want to know more about hardness.. www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/khgh.html