Salt And Plecos

[Zoinks]

i have a 20g tank full of platies, swordtails and mollies. my question is when i ad marine salt will the swordtails be ok as long as the pleco that resides in the tank. Also i have several hitchhiker snails in the tank, will this adversly affect them?

 

[theotheragentm]

Snails are goners with salt. Why are you adding salt?

 

[Zoinks]

there is a sticky up at top that explaines it...."mollies need salt"

 

[theotheragentm]

I keep Mollies without salt in the water. I just make sure I keep stable, clean water. Platies and Swordtails should have no problems with the low amounts of salt that Mollies seem to do better in, but I don't know about the Pleco. Also, like I said, the snails won't do well with salt at all. Again I don't use salt and I have healthy Mollies. I'm sure someone will disagree with me, and if there is no harm to anything else in the tank, I say go with some salt.

 

[helterskelter]

If you keep your water in good condation. ie water changes and good filteration. You also have no fungus or white spot infection...
Then their is no reason for salt!!!!!

Salt reduces the stress on the fish and allows them to live in poorer condations.

Like I've said in many posts befor 90% of mollies live in frest water all their life and have no problems, Farmers produce most in brackish water to again reduce the stress of the fish.

As fro pleco's they as a rule hate salt. Ofcoure some common pleco's will tollerate it but these grow to 2' long so not the best of fish to keep.

Helter

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I wouldn't use salt in your tank as you have fish like the pleco which are intolerant of salt, you also have fish (like the platys) which although could handle having salt in their tank for short periods of time, they would suffer from constant use in the long term.
Mollys can live in freshwater, in the wild they are known to live in a variety of conditions ranging from freshwater to even marine levels of salt.
For most common mollys, they are fine without any salt though (particularly is the water is alkeline)- my gold and black female molly is over 3 and a half years old now and has lived in a completely freshwater tank all her life with no health problems at all. As others have said, if you keep up on things like your weekly water changes with dechlorinator and feed the fish a good diet and take safety/precaution measures like quarentining the fish, your tank should stay desease-free and healthy.
If you mollys do start to get re-accuring fungal related health problems though (a sign the molly needs saltier water), you should set up the mollys their own tank- it would be bad to put salt in your current tank right now as it is though with the current stocking as you would actually cause the other fish to suffer health problems from the salt usage.