Guppies & Salt?

[mewhorse]

I wanted to buy a few guppies for my tank but the description at the store said they require aquarium salt. Is this absolutely necessary or can they do without? I have blackskirt tetras, corycats, algae eaters (otos), neon tetras, cardinal tetra, harlequin rasboras, and a gold gourami (he's supposed to need it too but seems fine without salt) I still have a little space in the tank (30 gallon) plus an empty 10 gallon that will be set up eventually (need filter) & the store had some gorgeous guppies with the orangey snakeskin tails - purty! Any help would be appreciated...not really a newbie - used to have guppies with no salt (10+ years ago) but I like to do things correctly!

 

[Xavier]

I wanted to buy a few guppies for my tank but the description at the store said they require aquarium salt. Is this absolutely necessary or can they do without? I have blackskirt tetras, corycats, algae eaters (otos), neon tetras, cardinal tetra, harlequin rasboras, and a gold gourami (he's supposed to need it too but seems fine without salt) I still have a little space in the tank (30 gallon) plus an empty 10 gallon that will be set up eventually (need filter) & the store had some gorgeous guppies with the orangey snakeskin tails - purty! Any help would be appreciated...not really a newbie - used to have guppies with no salt (10+ years ago) but I like to do things correctly!

he doesnt NEED it. they just say that cuz salt adds electrolytes and reduces stress. it's just making it healthier

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Aquarium salt should only be used if the guppies are suffering from a particular type of desease, if they are healthy you should avoid using salt at all costs particually because you have many fish that are intolerant of salt like oto's and cories (salt use may actually kill them).
There are no deseases though where salt is the only cure, many breeders who mass produce guppys use large quantities of antibiotics and stuff like salt 24/7 to prevent massive desease outbreaks amoungst them, this inevitably ends up though with guppys with poorer imune systems being bred over time (also from inbreeding too) from things like constant antibiotic use, and this is one of the reasons why guppys now days aren't as hardy as they used to be.

If you look after your guppys properly and take good care of them, you will never need to use salt on them. Like most things in fish keeping, good water quality, varied diet and a properly stocked tank with good habitat is the best way to keep healthy fish .

 

[nmonks]

As others have said, there's no reason to add marine salt to a guppy aquarium, but on the other hand, salt does them no harm at all. Guppies (including Endlers) can be (slowly) acclimated to fully marine conditions, and are very easily kept in a brackish water aquarium. In the wild, they are quite common in brackish water.

Aquarium tonic salt is something different to marine salt. Aquarium tonic salt is a white, powdery substance used by retailers to remove money from aquarists. It serves no purpose whatsoever in the average aquarium. If you ever need salt in an aquarium, use marine salt.

Cheers,

Neale

PS. Whilst Tokis-Phoenix is correct that salt isn't the only cure for diseases, it can be a very useful one in situations where regular (usually copper-based) medications cannot be used. Pufferfish, for example, are intolerant of copper, but even freshwater puffers can be kept (temporarily) in brackish water with a salinity 25% of seawater. This salinity will kill off whitespot and fungus. Likewise, mollies kept in salty water are very rarely plagued with fungus, fin-rot, or the shimmies, so adding salt to a tank of mollies is a much better (and cheaper) solution that buying medications every few weeks.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

PS. Whilst Tokis-Phoenix is correct that salt isn't the only cure for diseases, it can be a very useful one in situations where regular (usually copper-based) medications cannot be used. Pufferfish, for example, are intolerant of copper, but even freshwater puffers can be kept (temporarily) in brackish water with a salinity 25% of seawater. This salinity will kill off whitespot and fungus. Likewise, mollies kept in salty water are very rarely plagued with fungus, fin-rot, or the shimmies, so adding salt to a tank of mollies is a much better (and cheaper) solution that buying medications every few weeks.

Very true, but salt also has its down side in medicating fish too as many species of fish are intolerant of the stuff like scaless fish like neon tetras or cories.

 

[nmonks]

Can we quickly clear something up. Intolerance to salt has NOTHING to do with whether a fish has scales or not. Marine catfish, moray eels, true eels, and pufferfish all lack scales, but are perfectly able to live in the sea. Conversely, gouramis, tetras, and barbs all have scales, but will die very quickly in even brackish water, let alone seawater.

I don't know where the "scaleless fish" myth came from, but it is utter cobblers as far as the science goes. Intolerance to salt is all about whether a fish belongs to a family that evolved in the sea. Cichlids, rainbowfish, livebearers, and killifish have their ancestors in the sea and have a high tolerance for salt water. There are, for example, a few cichlids and many killifish that live and breed in the sea. Characins, anabantids, loaches, and so on evolved in freshwater and have little to no tolerance for salt.

Catfishes are a big group including many families. Most families are intolerant of salt, but at least two are more or less marine (the Ariidae and the Plotosidae) and several members of the plec and banjo catfish families are brackish water specialists. Dr. David Sands*, world-respected catfish expert, even says this: "Mollies and other brackish water livebearers can be kept with [Corydoras] catfish even though many books suggest Corydoras cannot tolerate salt water. Small amounts of salt will not harm catfishes". While I don't advocate keeping freshwater catfish in a highly saline brackish water tank, many hardy species will adapt just fine to a little salt, say, an SG of 1.002-1.003, which will be more than enough for mollies.

There's too much mythology about what salt can and cannot do to fish. Very little is based on experience, and most of it is people being told about it by other people who've been told it by someone else.

Cheers,

Neale

*in: Keeping Aquarium Fishes: Corydoras Catfish. David D. Sands, Dee Bee Books, 1986.

Very true, but salt also has its down side in medicating fish too as many species of fish are intolerant of the stuff like scaless fish like neon tetras or cories.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Can we quickly clear something up. Intolerance to salt has NOTHING to do with whether a fish has scales or not. Marine catfish, moray eels, true eels, and pufferfish all lack scales, but are perfectly able to live in the sea. Conversely, gouramis, tetras, and barbs all have scales, but will die very quickly in even brackish water, let alone seawater.

I don't know where the "scaleless fish" myth came from, but it is utter cobblers as far as the science goes. Intolerance to salt is all about whether a fish belongs to a family that evolved in the sea. Cichlids, rainbowfish, livebearers, and killifish have their ancestors in the sea and have a high tolerance for salt water. There are, for example, a few cichlids and many killifish that live and breed in the sea. Characins, anabantids, loaches, and so on evolved in freshwater and have little to no tolerance for salt.

Catfishes are a big group including many families. Most families are intolerant of salt, but at least two are more or less marine (the Ariidae and the Plotosidae) and several members of the plec and banjo catfish families are brackish water specialists. Dr. David Sands*, world-respected catfish expert, even says this: "Mollies and other brackish water livebearers can be kept with [Corydoras] catfish even though many books suggest Corydoras cannot tolerate salt water. Small amounts of salt will not harm catfishes". While I don't advocate keeping freshwater catfish in a highly saline brackish water tank, many hardy species will adapt just fine to a little salt, say, an SG of 1.002-1.003, which will be more than enough for mollies.

There's too much mythology about what salt can and cannot do to fish. Very little is based on experience, and most of it is people being told about it by other people who've been told it by someone else.

Cheers,

Neale

*in: Keeping Aquarium Fishes: Corydoras Catfish. David D. Sands, Dee Bee Books, 1986.

Very true, but salt also has its down side in medicating fish too as many species of fish are intolerant of the stuff like scaless fish like neon tetras or cories.

Yes i agree about the scaless fish thing, but to be honest i think if you are going to keep mollies in even a slightly salted tank with cories, i wouldn't keep cories in it at all. Its not natural for them at all and salt is a known killer of cories, so even in small amounts, although they may "adjust" to it, it can hold no health benefets for them or prolong their natural life expectancy. Fish can adjust to bad water quality too, it doesn't make it any better for them.
Giving salt to one fish to improve its health, but damaging another fishes quality of living in the process, does not make things any better.

 

[magafish18]

guppies do not need salt

 

[nmonks]

I would tend to agree, and certainly don't recommend keeping cories in brackish water tanks. But as a short term solution to some problems, like fungus or fin-rot, a case can be made that salty water is less harmful than copper-based medications. I don't necessarily subscribe to that argument, but I have heard it put many times, and when speaking with fish vets, they admit that copper-based medications aren't as harmless as many aquarists believe.

It's also good to get rid of the knee-jerk reaction that somehow salt is deadly poisonous to freshwater fish. It is the concentration of salt that matters, not whether or not it is there at all. A guppy can tolerate anything up to full strength seawater, a glassfish perhaps 50% seawater, a halfbeak 25% seawater, a three-spot gourami maybe 10% seawater, and so on. There are several freshwater killifish and livebearers that will stand salt concentrations HIGHER than normal seawater.

There are lots of fish that are freshwater in their natural habitat, but brackish water when introduced elsewhere. Tilapia and plecs are two examples: in southern Florida, both are very common in brackish water. With plecs, this is especially interesting, because they are often said to be "allergic to salt". There is absolutely no evidence for this, and their distriubution in Florida demonstrates quite clearly that they are in fact quite salt-tolerant, and are able to live and breed freely in brackish water. The supposedly "better" conditions in aquaria don't result in mass spawnings of plecs, and yet plecs are living and breeding in brackish water in Florida. So the whole thing is FAR more complex than simply what a fish experiences in its natural habitat or what group of fish it belongs to.

This is why I find brackish water fish so very interesting. There are no hard and fast rules, and there are masses of misconceptions.

Cheers,

Neale

Yes i agree about the scaless fish thing, but to be honest i think if you are going to keep mollies in even a slightly salted tank with cories, i wouldn't keep cories in it at all. Its not natural for them at all and salt is a known killer of cories, so even in small amounts, although they may "adjust" to it, it can hold no health benefets for them or prolong their natural life expectancy. Fish can adjust to bad water quality too, it doesn't make it any better for them.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I would tend to agree, and certainly don't recommend keeping cories in brackish water tanks. But as a short term solution to some problems, like fungus or fin-rot, a case can be made that salty water is less harmful than copper-based medications. I don't necessarily subscribe to that argument, but I have heard it put many times, and when speaking with fish vets, they admit that copper-based medications aren't as harmless as many aquarists believe.

For medicating purposes salt is fine with guppys, and of course mollys, but overal going back to the orignal question of the thread, guppys do not need to be kept in salt 24/7 and it is generally better for their health that they are not, unless of course you happen to need to treat them with salt for a particular desease and you don't have any salt-intolerant fish or critters with them.
Not all meds contain copper, and as far as i am aware it is not harmful to fish like guppys, only to things like shrimp, snails or other critters and a few rare fish species. I would be wary of what vets say about fish as it is amazing how little they can know about them at times. So far i have never needed to use salt in my fish keeping yet .

It's also good to get rid of the knee-jerk reaction that somehow salt is deadly poisonous to freshwater fish. It is the concentration of salt that matters, not whether or not it is there at all. A guppy can tolerate anything up to full strength seawater, a glassfish perhaps 50% seawater, a halfbeak 25% seawater, a three-spot gourami maybe 10% seawater, and so on. There are several freshwater killifish and livebearers that will stand salt concentrations HIGHER than normal seawater.

There are lots of fish that are freshwater in their natural habitat, but brackish water when introduced elsewhere. Tilapia and plecs are two examples: in southern Florida, both are very common in brackish water. With plecs, this is especially interesting, because they are often said to be "allergic to salt". There is absolutely no evidence for this, and their distriubution in Florida demonstrates quite clearly that they are in fact quite salt-tolerant, and are able to live and breed freely in brackish water. The supposedly "better" conditions in aquaria don't result in mass spawnings of plecs, and yet plecs are living and breeding in brackish water in Florida. So the whole thing is FAR more complex than simply what a fish experiences in its natural habitat or what group of fish it belongs to.

This is why I find brackish water fish so very interesting. There are no hard and fast rules, and there are masses of misconceptions.

Cheers,

Neale

What plecs species/types have you heard of breeding or living in brackish water? I am curious as i have never heard of this before.

 

[nmonks]

We are so way off topic here...

Anyway, the issue with copper is that it is said to damage the delicate membranes of the gills, and for fish that are sensitive to low oxygen levels (for example pufferfish), using copper may be problematic. I hasten to add that I have used copper based medications with puffer fish, but spend time with hard-core puffer people and you'll hear them being very negative about copper. There are a variety of other fish that are definitely known to be intolerant of copper, perhaps for the same reason, or maybe others. These include mormyrids, freshwater moray eels, Amazon stingrays, and a variety of marine fish.

Salt is astonishingly effective for curing things that seem stubborn or difficult to identify. From the "Interpet Manual of Fish Health" I copied out their recommendations of therapeutic doses of salt. I am 100% against the use of mindless usage of "aquarium salt" as a cure-all tonic in freshwater tanks, but I am open to using salt to solve specific problems. A couple of months back I fixed a nasty skin infection that two dwarf puffers came down with, by dipping them in seawater for 20 minutes. The slime and dead skin vanished within 24 hours, and after the secon dip, hasn't come back.

As for the brackish water plecs, here's something I wrote for ScotCat, and some links can be found on a thread over in the brackish forum.

Note that these brackish water plecs are low-salinity species. Fine for mollies and gobies, not fine for monos and scats!

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Annastasia]

Can we quickly clear something up.

Teehee, whenever he says that, you know he's ranting about salt intolerance.

Anyway, I concur. Guppies do not need salt, and with the fish you have, I'd definitely say not to use salt.

If you wanted to put them in the 10g alone, then it's choice. I'd say no salt myself, but it won't really hurt them.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

We are so way off topic here...

Anyway, the issue with copper is that it is said to damage the delicate membranes of the gills, and for fish that are sensitive to low oxygen levels (for example pufferfish), using copper may be problematic. I hasten to add that I have used copper based medications with puffer fish, but spend time with hard-core puffer people and you'll hear them being very negative about copper. There are a variety of other fish that are definitely known to be intolerant of copper, perhaps for the same reason, or maybe others. These include mormyrids, freshwater moray eels, Amazon stingrays, and a variety of marine fish.

Salt is astonishingly effective for curing things that seem stubborn or difficult to identify. From the "Interpet Manual of Fish Health" I copied out their recommendations of therapeutic doses of salt. I am 100% against the use of mindless usage of "aquarium salt" as a cure-all tonic in freshwater tanks, but I am open to using salt to solve specific problems. A couple of months back I fixed a nasty skin infection that two dwarf puffers came down with, by dipping them in seawater for 20 minutes. The slime and dead skin vanished within 24 hours, and after the secon dip, hasn't come back.

As for the brackish water plecs, here's something I wrote for ScotCat, and some links can be found on a thread over in the brackish forum.

Note that these brackish water plecs are low-salinity species. Fine for mollies and gobies, not fine for monos and scats!

Cheers,

Neale

Ah, thanks for the info, learn something new everyday as they say .
I was wondering though, when you treated the two dwarf puffers in seawater, how long did you dip them for and how to create the irght sort of seawater to do so? I am curious about this as i don't use salt, but it would be interesting to see how successful it is on say platies or guppys next time the opportunity arose.

Can we quickly clear something up.

Teehee, whenever he says that, you know he's ranting about salt intolerance.

Anyway, I concur. Guppies do not need salt, and with the fish you have, I'd definitely say not to use salt.

If you wanted to put them in the 10g alone, then it's choice. I'd say no salt myself, but it won't really hurt them.

Lol, i agree Annastasia .

 

[nmonks]

Doing salt dips for salt-tolerant fish is easy.

First put a litre or two of aquarium water into a plastic carton. I find old ice cream cartons ideal.

Next, add salt. You will need about 35 grammes per litre of water. Ideally, use marine salt mix, but cooking salt will work fine too. Just make sure you use non-iodised sea salt. Stir the water carefully, and make sure the salt is dissolved. If in doubt, leave it to sit for 20 minutes.

Catch the fish in a net, and then put the net in the carton of salt water. Don't release the fish. How long you leave the fish in depends on various factors like its size and salt tolerance. You will probably want to dip the fish for at least a 5 minutes to be of any use, and potentially for up to 30 minutes. Obviously the longer the better, but not all fish will tolerate salty water for long.

Provided the fish is swimming normally everything is fine. If it rolls over, gasps at the surface, or shows anything beyond mild stress and alarm, then remove the fish. My puffers sat quietly in the salty water for a 20 minutes without any problems. I would expect guppies and mollies to tolerate salty dips for a similar length of time, platies and swordtails for perhaps a shorter length of time.

Note that dips don't fix underlying problems in an aquarium, so while they do kill whitespot on the fish, they won't kill the spores in the aquarium. That's why adding salt to the tank -- if you can do so -- is more effective for things like whitespot. Dips are better for specific problems on particular fish, like fungus and fin-rot, that aren't going to spread to other fish in an aquarium.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thanks for the info, i shall keep it in mind next time i need to teat my fish for something, i may grab the salt instead of the chemical meds ! But over the last year i have only needed to use Pimafix and Melafix which are pretty natural stuff anyway, either way though it would be interesting to compare their effectiveness aganst certain ills next time such a situation arises.