Questions About Salt.

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I have a few questions about salt in aquariums:
 
 
1. I have dwarf gouramis and mollies together in one tank. Will the salt be okay for the gourami?
 
2. How much salt do mollies need?
 
3. Do I use regular aquarium salt or marine salt?
 
4. Can salt be used as a preventive in a betta tank?
 
 
Thanks so much!

 

[Byron]

1. I have dwarf gouramis and mollies together in one tank. Will the salt be okay for the gourami?
 

 
No.
 

2. How much salt do mollies need?
 

 
None.  There is a myth in this hobby that mollies require salt because they live naturally in brackish water.  While this is true for some natural species, most of them never get anywhere near brackish or marine waters.  And the fish in the hobby are so far removed from the wild stock anyway.  What mollies do need is moderately hard or harder water.  And the minerals necessary for this are calcium and magnesium, not salt.  Salt as we think of common table salt is sodium chloride.  This does not make water "hard" in terms of GH.
 

3. Do I use regular aquarium salt or marine salt?
 

 
Aquarium salt, but only for specific disease treatment.  Marine salt has other minerals as well as salt, and is used to create brackish or marine saltwater from fresh water.
 

4. Can salt be used as a preventive in a betta tank?
 

 
No.
 
Those were the short answers, now I will explain a bit.  Salt as a preventative is useless and dangerous.  Soft water fish are affected by salt, some more than others.  Hard water species such as livebearers tend to tolerate salt better.  But except for specific treatment of a disease where salt is the best option (like ich, velvet, etc) it is best not to add salt to a freshwater fish aquarium.  The so-called "preventative" levels sometimes suggested are completely useless, which makes the use of salt--which can and will debilitate many freshwater fish--pointless.
 
I wrote an article on salt that will go into this in much greater detail, you can find it published here:
http/www.wetwebmedia.com/SaltArtHosking.htm
 
Byron.

 

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Thank you so much! Your article really helped me out.