QUESTIONS ABOUT SALT AND FRESH WATER TANKS

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hmoobvwj

hmoobvwj

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Feb 13, 2008
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I know for a fact that a fresh water tank can be turned into a salt water tank but can a salt water tank be turn into a fresh water tank? or is there still excess salt on the glass that will harm fresh water fish? what is the differences?
-thanks-
 
Freshwater tanks actually benefit from some salt. I would guess the amount of salt residue, after washing the tank, would be tolerable and likely beneficial to a FW setup. I would still wash out the vessel/tank and clean just as you would any other tank. BTW, glass & acrylic don't really absorb anything.
Are you asking what the difference between freshwater & saltwater is? If so, maybe fish keeping is a little too advanced for you. Just my opinion there.
 
lol i know what salt and freshwater setups are. but i was just wondering if you can use a salt water tank for a FW setup after its been a SW setup for a while.
 
I would bet there would be a very limited amount of salt on any tank wall. Likely, not even enough for a balanced pH. Just rinse the tank before adding water. Be sure to cycle it properly or you'll end up wrongly blaming the salt changeover for your dead fish.
 
As long as you get all the residual salt creep off and clean it out real well, you should be fine. The glass is pretty close to inert so no worries about simple things like salt. If you are super paranoid you could always clean it with bleach then rinse rinse rinse rinse rinse with dechlored water... but you don't really even need to do that.
 
Freshwater tanks actually benefit from some salt.
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Not true at all. Many FW fish do not appreciate any salt in their water. There is no reason other than treating disease, to add salt to a FW tank.

The amount of salt residue in a well-rinsed, vinegar-soaked, salt-scraped tank would be extremely minimal.
 
My 110 was a running salt tank when I bought it. It is now my Discus tank. The one thing you have to be careful of is the filters. You have to clean them very well.
 
thanks all. :)
 
All of the media would probably have salt on it too. I don't think its the best route to treat this, but I heard that if you vigorously clean the media with most methods apart from the bleech, the alt should be gone and you need to cycle again for a short period, but there is no crap all over the media.
 
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