Hi,
There is a good recipe on the below site for making your own salt buffer for African Cichlids. I have used it and tested the water chemistry with a pH and Hardness testing kit and it looks good. All the ingredients are cheap and you can buy them from a supermarket. You can buy Cichlid salts from a pet shop but they are expensive.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/buffer_recipe.php