Should I add salt in my tank?

[yvez9]

I've been cycling for about a month now and it's almost done, nitrites have started to go down.

I was wondering however, I'll be giving away my guppies to my gf in a few weeks and gwetting cichlids instead.

Should I add salt to my water? It seems I have seen this be recommended a lot but never actually thought about doing it

 

[freddyk]

Should you add salt? No. There is no should about it. You can if you want, a bit of salt won't do any harm. Whether it's actually beneficial is still up for debate, but with 12 years of not using it my fish have always been perfectly healthy and disease free.

 

[leafs]

Why not add salt? If you have fish that can handle salt, why not. I think it would help prevent some diseases. Also if you have nitrites in your tank, it will help the fish handle it better. You shouldn't have to worry about nitrites in a cycled tank, but if you ever get a nitrite spike for some reason it will help your fish.

 

[KerriPaul]

I often found with Goldfish that they would get a bit peaky without salt and, in my experience salt does seem to reduce occurences of dropsy etc. but I can't say for sure if its any good.

 

[KerriPaul]

Also note that one of the pinned threads at the top says this:

12. Don't put salt with corys, plecos or loaches as it'll burn their skin.


Paul