Can you over salt your tank???My fish are itchy

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JohnnyRooster

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 8, 2008
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Ventura
I have a Q. How do i know if i put to much salt in my tank?
I went from a 30g which i controlled the salt just fine. I up graded to a 180g and now im not sure if im over salting or not salting enough. Really the problem that i have is that my fish are starting to itch, it started with my champs, then my venistus, and now some of my peacocks are itchy and my young peacocks have black stress spots. They're not all itching yet but it seems to be spreading. All my fish look happy, they're colorful, they display alot, respond well to me, and eat well. I've had the tank now for a month, luckly i didnt have to cycle it cause i kept the bacteria alive that was in the bio-tank when i bought the tank. My ph is holding at 8.3 and my ammonia is close to zero. I had a problem with itching in my 30g, i was told to ad some salt and it stop the prob. It doesnt seem to be helping this time. So i was wondering if maybe i over salted my tank. They dont itch non-stop, but it is a change in there behavior that i have noticed in the past week. But like i said, all the fish look happy and healthy. This problem didnt start till after i did a water change 10%.
Does anyone have any suggestions that can help
 
There's no reason in the world (aside from ich treatment) to salt a freshwater tank. Maybe I'm missing something...why are you putting salt in there? But yes-salt irritates fish's slime coat and that alone would cause itching. Tell me what I'm missing lol
 
well, all my fish are africans. I get all my fish and info from a local fish store that specialize in african cichlid. Thats what they told me to do, that they like slightly brackish water.
 
To get brackish water you use sea salt-is that what you're using? The original post didn't specify. I've heard of African fish-keepers using what they call "African Salts" but I was under the understanding that it was mainly minerals, etc to make the water hard.
I guess I'll sit this one out then. Good luck.
 
What the specific gravity of your water?
 
Its just your regular aquarium salt. They told me at the fish store that its not going to make that big of a difference and since the difference in my pocket would of been alot bigger i went with the aqua. salt, but I've been using it for 6+ months with no issues. Now I have this 180g my first big tank and I feel like I'm learning everything there is to keeping fish all over again.
 
Better get some research done-google is good. If in fact your African Cichlids are brackish fish (?) then they need Marine salt (Like Instant Ocean) not freshwater aquarium salt. And you also have to measure the specific gravity for brackish fish, you can't just dump the wrong kind of salt in.
I'm curious to find out if African Cichlids are even brackish fish because I've never heard that before.
 
ya your probally right. I have no idea what your talking about when you say gravity for the fish. That means i need to start read up on things some more. but like i said I've never had a problem with it before and also, I thought that the salt acually helped the slime coat. I'm sure to much could do damage also.
 
JohnnyRooster;2179013; said:
ya your probally right. I have no idea what your talking about when you say gravity for the fish. That means i need to start read up on things some more. but like i said I've never had a problem with it before and also, I thought that the salt acually helped the slime coat. I'm sure to much could do damage also.
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Sorry-should've explained. Specific gravity (SG) is the measure of salt in the water, how heavy the water is sort of. Marine salt makes the water heavy. You've probably seen the little plastic 'water holders' with a dial in them for saltwater tanks, that's what measures specific gravity. An SG of 1 is freshwater (no salt), an SG of 1.025 or so is full saltwater. Green Spotted Puffers live in brackish water, their SG should be around 1.010 or so (1/2 full marine water).
I'm still waiting to hear from someone else if Africans are even brackish fish as I've never heard that before. They need super hard water, but if your tap water is super hard then it's possible they'd do fine in just your tap water.
 
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