Aquarium Salt

[Blough]

I've been hearing people on the site talk about aquarium salt, what is it and why do people put it in freshwater aquariums? Is it something I should be using?
Thanks in advance for any and all answers you can offer.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Long story short... no, you should not use aquarium salt in your freshwater aquarium except in a very few circumstances.

• short term additions to treat specific conditions (parasites, etc.)

 
 
Aquarium salt can be a terrible thing... some fish simple can't handle it.  You would need to replace it with EVERY water change, constantly.  Fluctuating salinity with every water change is a problem for fish.   In short... there's no reason to use aquarium salt in a freshwater aquarium on regular basis.
 
 
Here's a good read on the topic of salt in the aquarium:
http/www.fishchannel.com/media/fish-health/disease-prevention/using-salt-to-treat-freshwater-fish-disease.aspx.pdf
 
 

Salt as a routine additive to freshwater aquaria Contrary to popular belief, there's no advantage to the routine addition of salt to freshwater aquaria. At best, it does nothing useful, and at worst it causes problems for fish unable to deal with the elevated salinity. There is some evidence that Malawi Bloat for example can be triggered by the careless use of salt in Rift Valley cichlid communities.

 
 

Brackish water fishes If brackish water fish are being kept, marine aquarium salt should be used rather than aquarium salt. The precise salinity isn't usually important, with anything from 5 ppt (about 0.6 oz/gallon) through to 18 ppt (2.4 oz/gallon) being recommended. The low end of that range corresponds to about 15% normal seawater salinity and is ideal for brackish water communities based around livebearers, gobies and plants. Higher salinities may prevent the use of plants but will be better suited to the big brackish water species such as monos, scats, archerfish and Colombian shark catfish.

 

[fluttermoth]

It used to recommended at lot in the bad old days, when people didn't understand aquarium chemistry as well as we do now.

Probably because in the days of few water changes and little, if any, filtration, salt would, to a certain extent, mitigate some of the issues associated with old tank syndrome and elevated nitrite.

 

[BaylorPerez]

with aquarium salt it could be used to treat some tank problems. or in some cases to increases the salinity in a tank, as for me i had to use it to make a brackish water environment for my snail eggs to hatch.

 

[fluttermoth]

with aquarium salt it could be used to treat some tank problems. or in some cases to increases the salinity in a tank, as for me i had to use it to make a brackish water environment for my snail eggs to hatch.

If you read the information that eagles posted, you'd see it says, quite clearly in bold, that you should always use marine salt for making brackish water, not aquarium salt.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

with aquarium salt it could be used to treat some tank problems. or in some cases to increases the salinity in a tank, as for me i had to use it to make a brackish water environment for my snail eggs to hatch.

 
See the note about how to set-up a brackish tank in the link above... 

 

[Byron]

The article by Neale Monks that JD linked deals with disease treatment.  At the risk of tooting my own horn, I authored an article on salt in general that Dr. Monks and Bob Fenner came across and asked to post on Wet Web Media because they felt it would be helpful for new aquarists in particular.
http/www.wetwebmedia.com/SaltArtHosking.htm

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Toot your own horn whenever its appropriate.  ;-)
 
 
My reference was specific to the two quotes:
1 - don't use aquarium salt as part of a regular routine.
2 - don't use aquarium salt for brackish tanks.

 

[Blough]

Okay, I understand. Thanks.

 

[BaylorPerez]

well its to late for me, my snails have hatched with the aquarium salt water. They look healthy and happy. so i will wait a couple weeks before putting them into my cory/snail tank