A little salt in the tank

[Elisabeth83]

I was talking with a guy who lives here in Sweden who has his own shop as well as being a killifish breeder. He told me because Swedens water is so soft that he uses about 1 teaspoon of salt per 5 gallons of water in all of his aquariums. He told me he hardly ever has problems. He says using the salt buffers the softness of the water therefore strengthening the fishes slime coat which wards of diseases.

I use about the same amount in my swordtail and platy tank because they are meant to have some salt in their water. I never have any problems with them. I haven't had any type of disease or any other type of problem with them in forever.

On the other hand I keep no salt in any of my other tanks and have been running into numerous problems the last month or so. Seems whenever I get something under control something else happens.

I'm thinking this guy is on to something and was thinking of doing the same in all of my tanks. I don't have any scale-less fish and even if I did from what he says it wouldn't be a probelm.

Now because the water is so soft here does the salt act in a different way than it would if the person using it had hard water?

I know there are a lot of people out there who swear salt does nothing and that fish who come from areas with no salt dont need it but it seems because the water is so soft here that the fish actually do better with some in their water.

If I wanted to start keeping say 1 teaspoon of salt per 5 gallons of water in each of my tanks how would I go about doing that? I need to do it gradually but am not sure where to start.

 

[ADelphi]

This is a good article in practical fish keeping about salt ---> http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=335

 

[freddyk]

I know there are a lot of people out there who swear salt does nothing

Well, there's plenty of people for whom salt does nothing, and I for one have been successful for enough years without it to know not to bother. However there are just as many people who swear by salt and find the fish healthier with the use of it. Obviously people get different results and there's no one right answer. It sounds like it's worth trying for you. I would suggest using it carefully, since too much salt will kill the fishes kidneys.

 

[Elisabeth83]

That's a great article ADelphi

The guy I was talking to has been keeping/breeding fish for 30 years and has been adding salt to all of his tanks pretty much since he began. From reading the article ADelphi posted a lot of experts say that they don't know the long term effects on fish when using salt on a regular basis but when I was talking about fish life expenctancies with the guy at the shop (his name is Jan pronounced Yan) he was telling me by adding the salts and keeping the temps lower (23-25) in his tanks that he's kept rams alive for 7 years when their life expectancy is supposed to only be 2-3 years.

I just read something like " don't use salt as a substitute for poor fishkeeping " but I don't think that is the case in my situation.

I think it's worth trying in my case!

edit: here I found the correct quote "Never use salt to compensate for bad fishkeeping!"

 

[andywg]

It all depends on what you are keeping.

You should never add salt to tanks containing fish that come from areas where there is no traceable amount of salt in the water, so anything with neons, plecos, cories, most catfish and true freshwater puffers should not have salt (hell, most of the fish from the amazon prefer soft acidic water).

All too often I read in books to "just add some salt" to prevent infections, though my fear is that if you do this and still get an infection (say, ich) then any salt remedies(i.e. salt bath) will be far less effective.