Aquarium salt

[jfisher103]

First I want to say whats up to my fellow fish enthusiasts. I am fairly new to fish keeping, (2 years freshwater). I have been getting conflicting opinions from pet stores and friends with tanks and here is my dilemma. How much aquarium salt is ok for a community tank. Below are the tank and occupants. Some say the salt is bad for scaleless fish, but the violet gobies require brackish water. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

120 gallon oceanic tank
gravel/ sand substrate
3 Violet gobies
1 clown loach
1 plecostamous
1 albino african frog
6 mollies
1 swordtail molly
1 upside down catfish
3 bala sharks
numerous live plants

 

[importracer]

First I want to say whats up to my fellow fish enthusiasts. I am fairly new to fish keeping, (2 years freshwater). I have been getting conflicting opinions from pet stores and friends with tanks and here is my dilemma. How much aquarium salt is ok for a community tank. Below are the tank and occupants. Some say the salt is bad for scaleless fish, but the violet gobies require brackish water. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

120 gallon oceanic tank
gravel/ sand substrate
3 Violet gobies
1 clown loach
1 plecostamous
1 albino african frog
6 mollies
1 swordtail molly
1 upside down catfish
3 bala sharks
numerous live plants

With the exception of the Violet Gobies, I have litterally seen ALL the mentioned fish on your list survive in a dentists' office tank for 5+years....No special needs(salt) were given to the pets, just monthly water changes...Notice I said monthly, not weekly, I asked the doc....(keep up with the single 40-50% weekly change, shshsh)....African frog, you mean those small frogs that sell for $2, right??????????

 

[Lupin]

Keep your dragon goby separated. Your other fish will never thrive for a long time with salt present in the tank permanently. Keep that salt away from your tank. For brackish setups, use marine salt, not aquarium salt.

 

[cr8on]

Firstly, welcome to MFK.

As previously stated, you should aim to move the dragon gobies to a separate tank with brackish conditions, that is a SG of 1.006 - 1.008 which is achieved by using a marine salt mix. The mollys would also benefit from having salt added to the water.

Other than this the rest of the species you have listed, especially the frog, pleco and the live plants will not tolerate salty conditions.

There seems to be a myth that aquarium salt is required for all fish species to thrive, this is untrue, and salt should really only be used as a short term medication when needed.