Salt Additions

[tetraman]

I am adding some aquarium salt to my tank to make my swordtails healthier and more comfortable. How quickly should I add it?

 

[jayjay]

According to your sig. you don't have swordtails

EDIT-now you do. You can't add salt as you have south American catfish.

 

[tetraman]

That's bull! I read that a little aquarium salt won't hurt any freshwater fish. It was also listed in the common myths section of that book that corys can't take salt.

 

[jayjay]

LOL ok then, you have a good day.

 

[sparky_555]

doesnt it burn the cories skin because they havnt got scales?

 

[demonmagus]

I think that inchworm said that a little salt wouldn't hurt cories. But over a lengthy period it might

 

[jayjay]

Salt is ok for catfish for a short time as a medicine e.g. a few weeks, then it causes things to go wrong with theirs livers etc. with prolonged use.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

That's bull! I read that a little aquarium salt won't hurt any freshwater fish. It was also listed in the common myths section of that book that corys can't take salt.

Check this out, you should really read this thread;

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...&hl=Guppys+salt?

You should never use salt on true freshwater fish unless in medical situations where it is the best med for the fish involved, but should otherwise not be touched. It is not a preventive med on true freshwater fish.

"A little aquarium salt won't hurt any freshwater fish" and "Aquarium salt hurts freshwater fish" are both untrue statements- it all depends on what exactly the fish is, but it is for sure that it can be very lethal on certain species of fish or do them no good at all.
You have numerous fish in your aquarium (like the neons and cories), where salt will do them no good at all.

If you want your fish to stay healthy in the long run, keep your tank and water quality clean and good, and feed your fish a varied and appropriate diet and make sure your stocking is good at all times.
This is the best way to keep your fish healthy, unfortunately there are no magical meds or quick cures that have been invented so far that beat good fish keeping practises in terms of keeping helathy fish in the long run .

 

[funnibunni80]

Ok, so lets say something does come up, like ich. I know that salt is a great cure, and that corys can handle it, but only if it is added very gradually... so what is a good way to slowly add it? For my other fish, I do three doses, of 1/3 the salt each spaced 12 hours apart.

What would be good for more salt-intolerabt fish, like corys?

 

[jayjay]

Cories can handle the salt but only for a week or two. Though if you did get ich you will want to be using a medicine aswel.

 

[Bignose]

Regarding what fish can and cannot handle salt. This is from a very knowledgable member on another fish forum:

Primary freshwater fishes are those that have remained, as far as we can tell from the fossil record, in fresh waters throughout their evolutionary heritage. Fishes that fall into this category include Characins, Carps and Catfishes.

Secondary freshwater fishes are those that had marine ancestors at some point in past time, but which moved into freshwater in order to occupy various niches. Cichlids are an example of secondary freshwater fishes - their nearest relatives are the marine Damselfishes of the Family Pomacentridae, and it's highly likely that both Families shared a common (and marine) ancestor.

Consequently, the secondary freshwater fishes still have at least some degree of osmoregulatory capacity for dealing with salt in the water, while the primary freshwater fishes never evolved it in the first place. So, placing primary freshwater fishes into water containing salt is a bad idea, and even modest amounts will kill them. Secondary freshwater fishes, on the other hand, can tolerate small amounts of salt, and indeed some members of secondarily freshwater Families are brackish in nature - the Cichlid fish Etroplus suratensis springs to mind as one example. Cyprinodontiformes also fall into this category - both the egg-laying Cyprinodontidae and the live-bearing Poeciliidae are also secondarily freshwater, some of the latter Family being fully brackish in the wild (indeed, the Giant Sailfin Molly, Poecilia vivipara, is fully euryhaline, and can live in fully marine water, as specimens captured in seawater off the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico testify eloqwuently).

Quite simply put, if your aquarium contains any primary freshwater fishes, do NOT add salt, as those fishes will suffer considerable stress if exposed to salt, and may even die. Even in the case of secondarily freshwater fishes, salt is only a good idea if the fishes concerned are KNOWN to inhabit brackish waters in the wild.

Most fishes fall into the category of being stenohaline, namely, they are either freshwater or fully marine. These fishes should only be exposed to the kind of water in which they occur in the wild with respect to salt content. Euryhaline fishes, that can migrate with some degree of freedom between freshwater, brackish and fully marine environments, are much fewer in number, and tend to be conspicuous in this regard when encountered in the textbooks - fishes such as Scats, Monos, Therapon jarbua, velifera Mollies and one or two of the Puffer Fishes are notable for this. Within the euryhaline division, there are those that can migrate more or less at will, and those that do so developmentally - the Puffer Fish Tetraodon nigroviridis is developmentally euryhaline, spending its juvenile stages in freshwater before migrating at a steady pace to increasingly saline waters until, as adults, they are strongly brackish or fully marine fishes. Once again, and I cannot stress this enough, it pays to do the research and find out what your fish is!

Cory catfish developed in a salt free environment. Their bodies do not have the mechanisms to deal with salt in the water. It has virtually nothing to do with scales or scaleless, it has almost everything to do with osmoregulatory processes which the cory catfish simply does not have to deal with salt.

 

[Inchworm]

Ok, so lets say something does come up, like ich. I know that salt is a great cure, and that corys can handle it, but only if it is added very gradually... so what is a good way to slowly add it? For my other fish, I do three doses, of 1/3 the salt each spaced 12 hours apart.

What would be good for more salt-intolerabt fish, like corys?

Hi funnibunni80OK

Salt and raised temperatures will go a long way toward helping to cure ich in most tropical fish, but corys don;t seem to get ich and treating them for it would be unnecessary. The best thing for them would be to remove them from the infested tank.

With my corys, I use salt a couple of ways. It's helpful in cases of advanced bacterial diseases where barbels, fins, tails or other outside parts of the fish are being eroded or otherwise deteriorating. To treat them with this, I mix up a fresh solution of about 2 tsp. salt to 2 cups of water. Bathe the cory for 20 minutes more or less, and then release him into clean tank water. Repeat this process up to 6 tunes a day until the crisis has passed and the cory seems to be holding his own. The salt seems to clean out the wounds and the fresh water (sometimes with a little MelaFix) gives them a chance to heal. I only recommend doing this as a last resort, because it is harsh treatment. Often it will work, but some fish in this condition will not recover no matter what you do.

The other time I use salt to treat corys is when I buy them and they appear to be shaky and sickly. This is often due to a too rapid change from water with one pH to water with a very different pH. They seem to be in shock and salt at the rate of 1 tsp per 5 gallons of water, in their tank, seems to gradually steady them and help them recover. Again. once fish get into a serious enough state to need these treatments their chances for survival are already slim.

Salt is not a magic cure-all. But sometimes it's just the thing to buy them a little more time to recover on their own. For corys, it acts as a heavy duty medicine and should be removed from the water by a series of water changes until the tank is back to plain water and the fish are recovered.

 

[CFC]

Put into basic terms.

If the fish comes from a salt free enviroment (inland rivers, streams and lakes) then dont add salt.
If the fish comes from a salty enviroment (esturine sections of river, deltas, mangroves and the sea) then do add salt.

Dont mix fish which come from different areas.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Ok, so lets say something does come up, like ich. I know that salt is a great cure, and that corys can handle it, but only if it is added very gradually... so what is a good way to slowly add it? For my other fish, I do three doses, of 1/3 the salt each spaced 12 hours apart.

What would be good for more salt-intolerabt fish, like corys?

As others have said, salt use on cories should only be used in serious emergency situation as it is a harsh substance on them- there are plenty of chemical based anti-whitespot meds which can be more than successfully used on salt-intolerant fish (like "Anti velvet and whitespot" by Interpet), salt is not the only effective med against whitespot.

 

[tetraman]

Here's an exact quote from Mike Wickham, who has been a fish keeper for around 40 years. This was in the Myths, Mysteries, and Misinformation section of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Freshwater Aquariums.

Salt Kills Cory Cats (This is just stating the false rumor.)

Baloney! I have kept practically every commercially available species of corydoras at levels of two teaspoons of salt per gallon, with no ill effects. Unfortunately, this myth is printed asa fact in many books.

On top of that, I put the salt in 3 days ago and my corys are doing fine.