Aquarium Salt And Algae Eaters

[shbimi]

Hi everyone,
at the moment i have a tank with three guppies. The tank has some aquarium salt in right now, to help prevent stress and disease in my fish. I want to get a small algae eater too, but it would need to be ok in a tank with aquarium salt, which is temperature is 80.

Any ideas? Thanks

 

[Corleone]

Your best option is to stop using the salt. It'll clear up over a few weeks of normal water changes. Aquarium salt does a bit to help prevent some diseases and treat others, but it causes stress to freshwater fish more than it prevents for constant use. Its use is a relic of the "bad old days" - it reduces the toxicity of ammonia and other waste products, but in a cycled tank, those should be zero at all times anyway.

 

[rabbut]

It does nothing to reduce ammonia toxidity Coraline, it nitrite and nitrate that it reduces the toxidity of. You're right in thinking that it is a relic though, and LFS's exploit this stuff for extra cash, it's a nice little earner for them Salt increases the pressure on the Osmoregularity system of the fish, and the long term effects of that are (as far as I'm aware) currently unknown. What is known, is that fish kept in salt for all their lies don't last as long as those that don't. To me that is reason enough to not use it It is sighted that it can lead to premature organ failure, though again, I haven't seen any evidence to support this...

As a short-term med for whitespot with none-salt-intollerant species, and while cycling, it is useful, but other than that, it is doing more harm to the fish than good, though the extent to which as yet is not fully understood...

It used to be used, as in the old days, they diden't waterchange. This lead to nitrate build-up that would wipe tanks out without warning. Salt was seen to prevent this, though nobody realy bothered to look into why the tanks went over in the first-place, or the effects that salt would have on the fish long-term

HTH
Rabbut

 

[shbimi]

It was in there from the cycling process (which has now finished) and because i thought they had white spot, but it has cleared up and all fish are healthy. I can get rid of the salt with my water changes no problem, but i suppose i was asking for any suggestions for algae eaters that can tolerate salt, just incase i need to add it again at any point.

 

[rabbut]

None spring to mind I'm afraid. There are better things for whitespot, that clear it more effectively IME, so hopefully you won't need to treat for it again

All algea eaters require a mature tank. This means you will have to wait for the tank to be 6months old before adding any anyway. A mature tank needs something to go drasitcally wrong for ammonia and nitrite to show themselves for any lenght of time, so salt shouldn't be required then either When theses chemicalls do show, they are part of a mini-cycle, lasing a few days at worst usualy, not the weeks you have probibly endured to this point...

I suppose I'm trying to say you won't need the salt again, so you don't realy need to worry about it, but if it is a consern, the chaps in the Pleco sub-forum of the catfish section should be able to help better than most "new to the hobby" regulars

HTH
Rabbut