How much Salt is to much salt?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
the things i have used salt for before are quarrantine, killing ich, releiving stress and encouraging a slime coat, many people will use it incorrectly so you need to be aware of the when and the why and the dose rate. oh another thing people use it for is to reduce the toxicity of a nitrite spike, or removing off flavour compounds in food fish.
i dig water changes though. i have used salt lots of times to treat goldfish ponds that are dying back BUT i have found that by changing the water prior to this occuring, by using forsight it saves the need for it and it saves losing fish because even when you use salt the fish will continue to die back for a while. if your trying to use it to kill a pathogen it is a good idea to go research what levels of salt will be effective on that pathogen because sometimes with real fresh freshwater fish the pathogen will handle the salt level better than the fish will. hence the use of other chemicals but you have to watch them too.
for example, neguvon, tricluroflon. sp? which is used to kill crab louse and worms and flukes etc is ok for goldfish but will kill arowana in rather small doses.
salt really is great though, natural enough and cheap. just make sure you use the right weight/amount per litre.
 
Great info guys thanks so much! I do water changes weekly, I might just start doing them twice a week and see if that helps.
 
i agree with everyone else, I think salt shouldnt be used unless you are trying to get rid of an ick outbreak, imo.
 
Gshock;3431655; said:
You really shouldnt have your aro or any freshwater fish for that matter in water containing salt for a constant period of time. By doing this, their bodies adapt to the salt and when you really need to use salt for ick, or cuts, or stress, it just takes away the effects all together.
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This isn't true at all. Its the change in salinity that's problematic for ich and fungi, not the presence of any salt. If that were so, then having a lethal amount of salt in a tank would completely prevent ich, no? The change in salinity (which the fish adapt to) causes an ion concentration gradient in the single-celled pathogens. I keep 9 freshwater tanks in <8 ppt. salinity at almost all times. I never really have problems with pathogens but when I have I just dropped the salinity or raised it depending on its current level. It's always worked for me.

There is some truth to the idea of adding salt for torn fins, though. You are helping to rid the water of such diseases to prevent infection. Also if you add salt, it is usually best (with most freshwater fish) to do it over a period of time depending on how high you want it to go. Often times this is over a period of days. Generally I don't raise or lower it by more than 3 ppt. per day, but different fish have different parameters.
 
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