Adding Aquarium Salt

[crazysilverwolf]

Thought i'd post here as essentaily i'm new to the forum and only an advanced beginner, i've read several articles that state aquarium salt is good for the fish and reduces illnesses. can it be added to a fresh water setup and will all my fish be happy with it in?

50 gallon tank

35 inches of fish

2 bala sharks
1 gold spot plec ( Thanks to KathyM for spotting it )
5 mollies
2 guppys
3 angels
5 gourami ( dwarf )

any help will be great

 

[three-fingers]

While you may have read it in multiple places, there is no evidence to support that adding Sodium Chloride (aquarium salt) to your tank has any benefits what so ever, and in my experience, it really doesn't.
Quite a few people will uphold that it helps...but can you get any one of them to provide reasoning to why it would help at all? No.

In the stupidly low doses recommended, it will have no effect - neither positive or negative - on your fish, it will only affect the weight of your wallet. In aquarium water chemistry terms, adding that little Sodium Chloride is pretty much negligible.

I suggest you read here, here and here on aquarium salt.

And then make up your own mind .

For actually useful applications of aquarium salt, go here .

At the end of the day remember that the companies selling aquarium salt will say lots of positive things about it on the packet, but they are trying to sell a product and not many of them are true.

Even if you decide to add aquarium salt, you can buy it much cheaper elsewhere. There's nothing special about pure Sodium Chloride .

 

[Miss Wiggle]

While you may have read it in multiple places, there is no evidence to support that adding Sodium Chloride (aquarium salt) to your tank has any benefits what so ever,

see i don't think that's quite correct

the effects of nitrite and nitrate on fish in an aquarium with salt in are less than one without, this was so widley recommended and used back in the day when water changes were considered to be a weekly task at most so nitrate levels were significantly higher than we have in our tanks nowadays.

while i do agree that there's no real point adding it in a well maintained tank i thought it was worth point out what the supposed effects are and where this way of thinking came from

 

[crazysilverwolf]

using the link above i have some fish the would like a little salt - mollies and platies - but my other fish will not like it. so i won't add yet, still a little confusing......lol

 

[three-fingers]

But in the low recommended doses, it makes no difference to nitrate or nitrite. The dosage to deal with nitrite in emergencies it significantly higher. It's also used when shipping fish long distances to reduce the toxicity of the nitrogenous compounds, but again in higher doses.

I'm not even sure it makes any actual difference to nitrate or nitrite in higher doses, I tried it once and it didn't do anything - but then I was using a freshwater test kit.
From what I understand, it lowers the toxicity of these compounds rather than getting rid of the compounds themselves, but I've not really found very much on this subject.

Either way if you need to add aquarium salt to help with nitrite/nitrate, then there is something wrong with your tank.

Short term in emergencies higher dosages are useful, but at the low dosages people add to their tank, it wont help anyway .

using the link above i have some fish the would like a little salt - mollies and platies - but my other fish will not like it. so i won't add yet, still a little confusing......lol

Platies don't need salt at all (but have a relatively high tolerance compared to your other fish), mollies generally do IMO, because without it they can become susceptible to diseases and whatnot.
The thing is that for the salt to actually make a difference to your mollies, you would need higher dosages, and higher dosages would harm your other fish....

Personally, to avoid any trouble in the future, I would take the mollies back and swap them for something similar like sword tails or more platys.
But having said that, if you have become attached to them you can try it. I know that lots of people can ave success with mollies in pure freshwater as long as the water is hard and alkaline (the opposite of what your non-livebearing fish like, but they can adapt better).

Do you know your water stats? If they are below 6.5 (or even 7 sometimes) the mollies you buy in storesare basically impossible to keep alive long term .

 

[fishlette]

platies and mollys can tolerate salt. mollies more so than platies as they are originally brackish-saltwater fish. if your water is not perfectly kept then they can have problems and this is where salt comes in.

there are many fish however that dont like salt on a long term basis but can deal with it on occasion. i use it sometimes when adding new fish or after some other stressful thing. however, it isnt essential for most fish if you keep their water clean

 

[mcdanielnc89]

They should all be fine in aquarium salt IMHO....... Our LFS, all add AS(Aquarium Salt) to help the fish...

 

[Miss Wiggle]

But in the low recommended doses, it makes no difference to nitrate or nitrite. The dosage to deal with nitrite in emergencies it significantly higher. It's also used when shipping fish long distances to reduce the toxicity of the nitrogenous compounds, but again in higher doses.

I'm not even sure it makes any actual difference to nitrate or nitrite in higher doses, I tried it once and it didn't do anything - but then I was using a freshwater test kit.
From what I understand, it lowers the toxicity of these compounds rather than getting rid of the compounds themselves, but I've not really found very much on this subject.

Either way if you need to add aquarium salt to help with nitrite/nitrate, then there is something wrong with your tank.

Short term in emergencies higher dosages are useful, but at the low dosages people add to their tank, it wont help anyway .

absolutely agree, just thought i'd explain where the practice came from that's all

 

[dwarfgourami]

They should all be fine in aquarium salt IMHO....... Our LFS, all add AS(Aquarium Salt) to help the fish...

This will be as a short term measure to help the fish with transition. As a temporary medicinal solution most fish can cope with low levels of salt, it is longterm that it may cause damage to their health. To keep freshwater fish in salt water long term is no longer regarded as good practice- except for fish like mollies which naturally occur in brackish water.

 

[mcdanielnc89]

They should all be fine in aquarium salt IMHO....... Our LFS, all add AS(Aquarium Salt) to help the fish...

This will be as a short term measure to help the fish with transition. As a temporary medicinal solution most fish can cope with low levels of salt, it is longterm that it may cause damage to their health. To keep freshwater fish in salt water long term is no longer regarded as good practice- except for fish like mollies which naturally occur in brackish water.

I do not agree with you.. most of the LFS/LPS keep AS in thier tanks.... in all fish species.... and it does not kill them...

 

[fishlette]

They should all be fine in aquarium salt IMHO....... Our LFS, all add AS(Aquarium Salt) to help the fish...

This will be as a short term measure to help the fish with transition. As a temporary medicinal solution most fish can cope with low levels of salt, it is longterm that it may cause damage to their health. To keep freshwater fish in salt water long term is no longer regarded as good practice- except for fish like mollies which naturally occur in brackish water.

I do not agree with you.. most of the LFS/LPS keep AS in thier tanks.... in all fish species.... and it does not kill them...

maybe where you are from but i work at an lfs and we only use salt the aid with medicating as do all the other pets shops i deal with and i know many of them. if your system is good enough and your water's perfect, you dont need salt all the time

and for anyone to keep salt in their tanks all the time would be ludicrous or does he not sell clown loaches and corys and the other large array of fish that are not tolerant in the least of salt in any form or dilution??

 

[dwarfgourami]

They should all be fine in aquarium salt IMHO....... Our LFS, all add AS(Aquarium Salt) to help the fish...

This will be as a short term measure to help the fish with transition. As a temporary medicinal solution most fish can cope with low levels of salt, it is longterm that it may cause damage to their health. To keep freshwater fish in salt water long term is no longer regarded as good practice- except for fish like mollies which naturally occur in brackish water.

I do not agree with you.. most of the LFS/LPS keep AS in thier tanks.... in all fish species.... and it does not kill them...

Exactly- and they are in transition. They are not going to live out their lives in the shop tank, hopefully. That's precisely what I'm talking about- a short term measure until the fish get sold (and even then many shop keepers would regard this as outdated practice).

You will also find that shops keep a large number of fish cramped together in small tanks, which again is not something you should replicate at home. What you see in the shop is quite simply no guide to what fish are going to need longterm.

If as hobby keepers we are not able to keep our freshwater fish (not counting mollies) in good enough condition not to need medicinal salt, then there is something wrong with our fishkeeping practices. It's like intensive farmers dosing their chickens with antibiotics all the time- free range chickens don't need that. If we keep pets, we should keep them under healthy conditions. It's not as if it was all that difficult, these days we have a good understanding of the needs of different types of freshwater fish.

 

[fishlette]

[/quote]

Exactly- and they are in transition. They are not going to live out their lives in the shop tank, hopefully. That's precisely what I'm talking about- a short term measure until the fish get sold (and even then many shop keepers would regard this as outdated practice).

You will also find that shops keep a large number of fish cramped together in small tanks, which again is not something you should replicate at home. What you see in the shop is quite simply no guide to what fish are going to need longterm.

If as hobby keepers we are not able to keep our freshwater fish (not counting mollies) in good enough condition not to need medicinal salt, then there is something wrong with our fishkeeping practices. It's like intensive farmers dosing their chickens with antibiotics all the time- free range chickens don't need that. If we keep pets, we should keep them under healthy conditions. It's not as if it was all that difficult, these days we have a good understanding of the needs of different types of freshwater fish.
[/quote]

i totally agree. a healthy, mature tanks water should already be clean enough to not need salt. if anyone is using salt in their tanks i would steer clear personally. it could be for a number of reason they do it and none of them are really favourable. it could be either they come from a dodgy wholesaler and need to be treated on arrival or the filtration system is inadequate and they are compensating by trying to ward off disease. they could have even recently had an outbreak of some kind of disease and really, what kind of shop is going to admit these kinds of things. its easier to say they use salt cause they believe its good for the fish and then you walk out thinking about how wonderful they are to look after their fish so well. its called a sales pitch either that or he is as mislead as he says and in which case i still would nto suggest buying from a place that really doesnt know what theyre doing.

this is my opinion anyway. just remember when buying fish from a shop that uses salt, their pH might be higher than your own and bringing a fish into such different pH could be bad for your fish. pH swings can be incredibly harmful and fatal to fish. just something else to think about.

 

[three-fingers]

This will be as a short term measure to help the fish with transition. As a temporary medicinal solution most fish can cope with low levels of salt, it is longterm that it may cause damage to their health. To keep freshwater fish in salt water long term is no longer regarded as good practice- except for fish like mollies which naturally occur in brackish water.

In the low concentrations we're talking about here, any fish fish can deal with having sodium chloride in the water. For mollies, sodium chloride is not what you want anyway, it doesn't make brackish or marine water so while keeping mollies in a high concentration of it would be OK, it loses lots of the benefits that using marine salt would bring.

I do not agree with you.. most of the LFS/LPS keep AS in thier tanks.... in all fish species.... and it does not kill them...

That's because it's in such low doses, it doesn't harm them, but it doesn't help in the slightest them either.

As Miss Wiggle said, the myth of adding salt to a freshwater aquarium has stemmed from it's prior uses and been perpetuated by companies selling the stuff with lot's of false claims.

Fish farms use salt too, but only for specific purposes, not as a general additive. Even fish farms use it in to "reduce stress" (by way of reducing the toxicity of the nitrogenous compounds that build up when shipping) when shipping them over long distances, but they use around 30 grams per gallon.

Fish farms don't special 'aquarium salt' or even 'fish farm salt', they just buy tonnes of Sodium chloride cheaper elsewhere.
They don't waste their money using it to no effect in tiny doses either.

So if fish farms dont do it, what makes aquarists think it has any benefits?

 

[crazysilverwolf]

created quite a stir, well looking at your comments this is quite a debated issue, i was thinking of adding salt but no more. my fish are very healthy even the mollies for the moment so i'll remain with my current setup. just pooper scooping my tank, a very tedious but necersary task. i would like to thank everyone for their comments you have helped a great deal.

thanks again.