Salt...any need for it regularly

[duanes]

I don't see any need to add salt for HRPs, convicts of FMs on a regular basis, unless your tap water is mineral free.
With the JDs you could go either way, I snorkeled with them in the Yucatan, and the Cenotes they inhabit there, were only a few hundreds yards from the Caribbean, so a bit brackish (like the video below), but there are also JDs from further inland where the water would be totally fresh.
Eden2

 

[neutrino]

You can find articles recommending salt, no salt, or low salt. If you ask me, aquarium supply companies have made a lot of money selling a product most people don't need, need only occasionally, or need at lower doses than directions on the package. Exceptions would include brackish water and saline lake fish.

After using salt faithfully for years I ditched it nearly 20 years ago, except as a temporary treatment for something, and for that purpose you can substitute other forms of sodium chloride, like canning salt. This includes years of keeping and breeding rift lake cichlids. Guess the first thing I noticed after ditching salt for regular use? No more of the occasional mystery scratching after water changes, something you can find a lot of forum threads on, sometimes with the recommended solution of adding salt. If anything, since ditching salt, I've had fewer cases of sick fish, but that may be due to other factors, like improvement in fish foods.

As RD says, you're likely to have some salt in your water already, depending on your location. You might find this interesting, note how the African Rift lakes and North American Great Lakes are very close in salinity: salinity comparison

 

[Jeff5347]

Appreciate it everyone. Yea my fish are swimming about fine...right now I don't see any reason to throw something in the mix that will mess up that balance. As for the snorkeling that must have been awesome. Told he wife this year some plans....learn to scubba dive and go of the cape and see some sharks from a shark cage. Working on the cage lol

 

[Hendre]

cape what?

 

[Jeff5347]

^^^^ Cape Cod, live in Mass...from seeing the shark diving videos there is a good amount of blue sharks , some mako, basking and hammerheads, but great whites do make their way up here. The price isn't cheap but man what an adventure to be able to do

 

[ahud]

I think RD hit the nail on the head. Why add anything if you do not know what is in your current water.

I don't know how to measure the salt content. But you can measure KH, GH, and conductivity to get a general idea of your water parameters. If you have hard water, then pH becomes more relevant value to know as well.

Just to give examples:
My water in Clemson SC came out of the tap with GH and KH of 1-2 and conductivity was extremely low. If I wanted to keep Rift lake cichlids and Central Americans I would need to buffer the water. Soft water fish such as most South Americans and West Africans thrived in the tap water.

My parent's house has tap water of KH and GH around 10-12 and the conductivity is around 1,000 micros. I would not add anything to this water as it is fairly hard. But I would not expect soft water fish to do well.

I think water softeners increase conductivity substantially. So even though you are softening the water, you are adding more "stuff" to the water. Which soft water fish do not appreciate.

 

[Hendre]

soft water fish are fine in hard water, other way round is no go as a general rule i think

 

[duanes]

Although some soft water species are adaptable, and will survive in hard water, as some rift lake Africans will tolerate soft water, the long term effects can be troublesome.
I believe the predominance of "hole in the head disease" in older Amazonian and other S American soft water fish, may be due to the stress of being kept in hard water they have not evolved to live in.
And the same goes for "hole in thread or bloat", in rift lake species kept in mineral poor conditions. Although the conditions may not prompt an acute response, chronic stress related problems may be the result.
If you keep fish that normally have a life span of 2 or 3 years, these chronic problems may not be important. (Bettas or other short lived species come to mind).
But many cichlids, catfish, and/or other larger species can live many years, and problems may not become obvious until after maturity at 3 or more years of age, so just when the fish is reaching full potential, it becomes scarred by a normally benign bacterial infection brought on by its inability to cope in the non-optimum conditions long term.
Old oscars are often the poster children for these scarred presentations.
Of course "too small tanks" and poor water quality is probably more common, but add these to a un-optimum osmotic conditions and the result will be obvious.

 

[RD.]

Totally agree with Duane. Stress in any form is never a good thing.

 

[Jeff5347]

I think RD hit the nail on the head. Why add anything if you do not know what is in your current water.

I don't know how to measure the salt content. But you can measure KH, GH, and conductivity to get a general idea of your water parameters. If you have hard water, then pH becomes more relevant value to know as well.

Just to give examples:
My water in Clemson SC came out of the tap with GH and KH of 1-2 and conductivity was extremely low. If I wanted to keep Rift lake cichlids and Central Americans I would need to buffer the water. Soft water fish such as most South Americans and West Africans thrived in the tap water.

My parent's house has tap water of KH and GH around 10-12 and the conductivity is around 1,000 micros. I would not add anything to this water as it is fairly hard. But I would not expect soft water fish to do well.

I think water softeners increase conductivity substantially. So even though you are softening the water, you are adding more "stuff" to the water. Which soft water fish do not appreciate.

I have the tests for the usual ...ph, amm, n02 , phos, and the such but to test hardness and such I don't have those test. Def should look into getting that as well to see where I am