Aquarium salt in freshwater tanks?
- Thread starter PacKRaT
- Start date
Salt:
Okay, Okay, everyone has talking about adding salt to their aquariums lately, so here are the facts. All fish need a certain amount of salt, however the majority of freshwater fish find the amount of salt that naturally occurs in our freshwater sufficient. Certain species can tolerate larger amounts of salt, others cannot. The easiest way to tell if your fish can or cannot tolerate salt is to look at their scales. If you have a large scaled fish like a Goldfish, Bala shark, etc. then your fish can tolerate you adding additional alt to the tank. If, however, you have tight scaled or scaleless fish like eels, knife fish, most tetras, etc. these species generally do not tolerate the addition of more salt at all.
Why is this? Simply put it is a mechanism called osmosis. Fish maintain an internal concentration of salt in their body fluids higher than that of their liquid environment. Osmosis causes water to transfer from the lower salinity of the pond water into the tissues of the fish. The kidneys must eliminate this additional water buildup. Although salt in higher concentrations may slow some disease-causing bacterial growth in the pond and aquarium, the predominantly accepted theories ascribe the primary benefits of salt to lowering the osmotic pressure. This reduces the effort the fish must expend in eliminating the excess water. The saved energy is then available for use by the fish's own immune system to take care of other potential problems. The presence of salt also helps counteract any nitrite toxicity. In some cold climate areas, it is added in the winter to lower the freezing point of the water.
Most local tap water (but call and ask your water company, or test your own water for the results first) often has a salinity of up to 0.5 ppt. This amount cannot be tasted, but we drink it and we put it into our ponds and aquariums. If our fish were put into an absolutely pure (distilled) water environment, the osmotic pressure would be so high that some species would be unable to eliminate the excess water and would die almost as if by drowning. On the other hand, if the salinity approaches that of the internal tissues of the fish, the osmosis process will decrease or even reverse. This can cause the fish to die, essentially of dehydration. Any discussions should therefore center not on whether salt should be in the water, but how much. This osmosis process is directly affected by scale type and size. So, speaking in generalities, large scaled fish can generally take additional salt, up to a point. Small tight scaled and scaleless fish cannot.
Now the decision of whether or not to add salt is a personal one. The greatest "myth" out there is the thousand and one sure fire, rule of thumb rule about adding salt. 1 tablespoon per gallon, 1 teaspoon per 5 gallon, whatever the particular "expert" swears by, .... everywhere I go I see a new set of rules and guidelines, and no two are ever the same! Since everyone's water has a different concentration of salt in it, there is no such thing as a hard and fast rule to go by!
If you are in the mood to add salt, ALWAYS spend the few dollars on a good hydrometer so you can accurately see where your levels are, and how much, if any, you are going to adjust it. Heck, you don't blindly add pH UP or pH Down to your tank; you test your water first to see if you need to add any, and approximately how much. Well the same is true with salt.
When discussing salt for ponds and aquariums, I want you to be quite aware that I am not talking about adding (or not adding) standard table salt. Table salt is what is known as "iodized salt" or salt that contains iodine. The salt that should be, and safely can be added to your ponds and aquariums is non-iodized salt, commonly sold as aquarium salt. You can also find this salt in your grocery store under the name of "canning salt". There is still a great debate about whether or not to use table or iodized salt in freshwater aquariums, personally I figure, why risk it? If I feel the need to add salt (which I rarely do) I always use non-iodized salts.
CREDIT: http://www.ereeftank.com/Articles.asp?ID=172
Okay, Okay, everyone has talking about adding salt to their aquariums lately, so here are the facts. All fish need a certain amount of salt, however the majority of freshwater fish find the amount of salt that naturally occurs in our freshwater sufficient. Certain species can tolerate larger amounts of salt, others cannot. The easiest way to tell if your fish can or cannot tolerate salt is to look at their scales. If you have a large scaled fish like a Goldfish, Bala shark, etc. then your fish can tolerate you adding additional alt to the tank. If, however, you have tight scaled or scaleless fish like eels, knife fish, most tetras, etc. these species generally do not tolerate the addition of more salt at all.
Why is this? Simply put it is a mechanism called osmosis. Fish maintain an internal concentration of salt in their body fluids higher than that of their liquid environment. Osmosis causes water to transfer from the lower salinity of the pond water into the tissues of the fish. The kidneys must eliminate this additional water buildup. Although salt in higher concentrations may slow some disease-causing bacterial growth in the pond and aquarium, the predominantly accepted theories ascribe the primary benefits of salt to lowering the osmotic pressure. This reduces the effort the fish must expend in eliminating the excess water. The saved energy is then available for use by the fish's own immune system to take care of other potential problems. The presence of salt also helps counteract any nitrite toxicity. In some cold climate areas, it is added in the winter to lower the freezing point of the water.
Most local tap water (but call and ask your water company, or test your own water for the results first) often has a salinity of up to 0.5 ppt. This amount cannot be tasted, but we drink it and we put it into our ponds and aquariums. If our fish were put into an absolutely pure (distilled) water environment, the osmotic pressure would be so high that some species would be unable to eliminate the excess water and would die almost as if by drowning. On the other hand, if the salinity approaches that of the internal tissues of the fish, the osmosis process will decrease or even reverse. This can cause the fish to die, essentially of dehydration. Any discussions should therefore center not on whether salt should be in the water, but how much. This osmosis process is directly affected by scale type and size. So, speaking in generalities, large scaled fish can generally take additional salt, up to a point. Small tight scaled and scaleless fish cannot.
Now the decision of whether or not to add salt is a personal one. The greatest "myth" out there is the thousand and one sure fire, rule of thumb rule about adding salt. 1 tablespoon per gallon, 1 teaspoon per 5 gallon, whatever the particular "expert" swears by, .... everywhere I go I see a new set of rules and guidelines, and no two are ever the same! Since everyone's water has a different concentration of salt in it, there is no such thing as a hard and fast rule to go by!
If you are in the mood to add salt, ALWAYS spend the few dollars on a good hydrometer so you can accurately see where your levels are, and how much, if any, you are going to adjust it. Heck, you don't blindly add pH UP or pH Down to your tank; you test your water first to see if you need to add any, and approximately how much. Well the same is true with salt.
When discussing salt for ponds and aquariums, I want you to be quite aware that I am not talking about adding (or not adding) standard table salt. Table salt is what is known as "iodized salt" or salt that contains iodine. The salt that should be, and safely can be added to your ponds and aquariums is non-iodized salt, commonly sold as aquarium salt. You can also find this salt in your grocery store under the name of "canning salt". There is still a great debate about whether or not to use table or iodized salt in freshwater aquariums, personally I figure, why risk it? If I feel the need to add salt (which I rarely do) I always use non-iodized salts.
CREDIT: http://www.ereeftank.com/Articles.asp?ID=172
Hey, I started this thread, and I got the info I wanted. Maybe you guys could burn over to another thread, or start one titled "why salt using people are stupid" or something equally assinine. I just wanted feedback on the topic of salt in freshwater tanks, not feedback on the competence of MFK members.
31 people don't use salt now, 23 do. I'll be phasing out my use of salt over the next few water changes. I just wanted to see different opinions and materials before I made my own decision. Thanks to all for your feedback, I'm sure we'll all be posting on this topic again in a month..
bigspizz;1155817; said:
Thats a myth, the size of the scales has nothing to do with the fishes ability to process salt. If your theory was true then that would mean a marine clown fish (whose scales are practically non-existant to the naked eye) would be able to tolerate salt a lot less easily than a koi carp (which has very large scales).
The myth of small scaled fish or "scale-less" fish being less tolerant of salt came from when people in the old days noticed that many tetra's, loaches and catfish etc were not very tolerant of salt at all, and people noticed that one thing that a lot (but not all) of these fish had in common was that most didn't have any obvious scales on them, or only had tiny scales.
So people naturally assumed that fish which had small scales on them were less tolerant of salt because of of the size of their scales.
But in actual reality the scale thing is purely coincidence, and the main reason why a lot of these tetras, loaches and catfish were intolerant of salt was purely because the habitats where they came from (the Amazon being one of the main ones) are practically devoid of salt and so the fish had simply evolved to thrive best in conditions where there were only trace levels of salt.
I'm sorry, but your scale-theory is simply an old myth in the hobby and has no real scientific proof to back it up etc.
bigspizz;1155817; said:
Fish have an osmotic pressure greater than that of the fresh water around them and in order to maintain that pressure they must keep a
greater concentration of salt internally than what is outside of them. This is only true for freshwater fish. The reverse is true for saltwater fish. Increasing the ammount of salt that a freshwater fish is exposed to will result in the fish becomming dehydrated. The freshwater fish is designed to expell water and hold salt so if you increase the salt levels above what the fish hold internaly it will pass out more water than it asorbs. The result is a strain on the internal organs, and possible liver and kidney failure, and kidney stones.
So basically, adding salt to freshwater fish aquariums puts MORE pressure on the fishes internal organs, causing the fish more stress.
This is not true at all and this is another myth. The myth came about from people treating fishes for parasites like whitespot and velvet etc, people noticed that salt is particularly effective at killing off such parasites, and that salted fish aquariums rarely ever encounter these parasites.
So people assumed through the (incorrect) process you described above that the fish were saving energy from the salt, but in actual reality the only reason why fish are less likely to get parasitic infections in salted tanks is because the parasites themselves cannot tolerate the salt.
The salt of course has its own negative effects on the fishes health, and so is a double edged sword, but in a clean and properly managed freshwater aquarium where fish are quarentined properly and fed a good diet etc, the fish will not get these sorts of parasites anyway and will live longer than the fish in salted aquariums because they have not had to deal with years of internal stress/damage from the salt etc.
Tokis-Phoenix;1160833; said:
You keep saying show some proof or whatever. I did, you are the one putting your opinion out there show me 1 good reputable source that goes with what you are saying, and then we are debating. Till then you are just beating a dead dog with your opinion IMPO....
bigspizz;1160922; said:
You want sources? Here's a load;
http://groups.msn.com/Breedingtropicalfish/osmoregulation.msnw
http://www.marietta.edu/~mcshaffd/aquatic/sextant/excrete.htm
http://www.aquascienceresearch.com/APInfo/Salt.htm
http://www.algone.com/salt_in_fresh.php
http://www.marietta.edu/~mcshaffd/aquatic/sextant/excrete.htm
The evidence you gave in your link was flawed and i pointed that out to you explaining why it was flawed, you still haven't come up with anything more to prove to me that you facts aren't wrong by explaining exactly why they aren't wrong etc.
My opinions on salt in freshwater aquariums is based on years of research on the subject, since these debates often come up in forums- and i have yet to see anything convincing that makes me agree with you.
bigspizz;1160957; said:
What are you on about with this example?
