Will salt hurt live plants

FishForums.net Pet of the Month
🐶 POTM Poll is Open! 🦎 Click here to Vote! 🐰

Bpervell

New Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2018
Messages
24
Reaction score
6
Hello - My tank is a mixture of live (swords, anubias, and one other plant IDK) It is a 55 gallon freshwater. I have always been told to add aquarium salt (1 teaspoon to 5 gallon) during water changes. Parameters are - all zero except for nitrates for almost a year they were 80+ but last two weeks after only doing 50% water changes I did two 75% a week apart now nitrates are 10 or so. Funny thing now the fish are hanging in different areas of the tank - weird. The tank is a heavily stock community tank - livebearers, tetras, glass cats, dojos, cories, grouamis, angels.
Filtration is a HOB Aqueon 75, two powerheads for UGF a 18 inch bubble wand & a 4 inch airstone
So with high nitrates plants were doing well with no salt - I now have added salt for the fish and plants doing not so well - turning yellow, "melting" etc. I do add 1 cap of Flourish twice a week.
So do I need to add salt to my tank for my fish health or what is an alternative
Thanks in advance

EDIT - lights run about 11 hours per day - very little sunlight & a heater at 78.3 degrees
 
Hello - My tank is a mixture of live (swords, anubias, and one other plant IDK) It is a 55 gallon freshwater. I have always been told to add aquarium salt (1 teaspoon to 5 gallon) during water changes. Parameters are - all zero except for nitrates for almost a year they were 80+ but last two weeks after only doing 50% water changes I did two 75% a week apart now nitrates are 10 or so. Funny thing now the fish are hanging in different areas of the tank - weird. The tank is a heavily stock community tank - livebearers, tetras, glass cats, dojos, cories, grouamis, angels.
Filtration is a HOB Aqueon 75, two powerheads for UGF a 18 inch bubble wand & a 4 inch airstone
So with high nitrates plants were doing well with no salt - I now have added salt for the fish and plants doing not so well - turning yellow, "melting" etc. I do add 1 cap of Flourish twice a week.
So do I need to add salt to my tank for my fish health or what is an alternative
Thanks in advance

EDIT - lights run about 11 hours per day - very little sunlight & a heater at 78.3 degrees

Hello and welcome to the forum. I have been curious of the exact same thing as I’m treating my tank with salt at the moment. I’ve heard mixed opinions on this. Hopefully we can get some answers. :)
 
The only reason you add salt (sodium chloride) to an aquarium is if you are treating diseases like minor bacterial, fungus or protozoan infections, or if you have a brackish water aquarium.

There is no other reason to add salt unless you have soft water and keep livebearers or other hard water species. Then you should use calcium and magnesium chloride instead of sodium chloride. However, if you can't get calcium and magnesium chloride, then sodium chloride can be used temporarily to add some minerals to soft water. But you should try to get calcium and magnesium asap and use that instead of sodium chloride.

Rift Lake water conditions, designed for African Rift Lake cichlids, is the best thing to use to increase the general hardness (GH) if you have soft water and want to keep fish that come from hard water.

-------------------------
If you add too much salt (sodium chloride) then plants can die. You can add 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres of water and it will not harm the plants. However, if you add 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres, then some plants will be affected by the salt. Neither dose rate for salt will affect filter bacteria.

-------------------------
Did you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?
If chlorinated tap water is added to an aquarium, it can poison the fish and cause them to act unusual. Many fish will hang out near a filter outlet or under the surface and breath heavily. They do this to try and get oxygen because the chlorine in the water damages the gills and the fish have trouble getting oxygen.
 
I agree...there is absolutely no benefit to adding common salt (sodium chloride, as in aquarium salt or sea salt) to a freshwater aquarium on a continual basis. It will not provide any sort of pr3evention, and it will harm not only plants but most freshwater fish. Salt used to treat a specific issue, for a limited period of one or two weeks, is a very different thing. The detriments to fish can be read in my article:
http://wetwebmedia.com/SaltArtHosking.htm

The other issues mentioned in post #1...you have an inappropriate combination of species in this tank so that is causing issue for some of the fish now and will continue. Water parameters, meaning the GH and temperature and pH, vary for the fish species listed.
 
Thanks for info
Yes I use prime and tetra safe on all water changes
 

Most reactions

trending

Staff online

Back
Top