API General Cure, which is widely recommended the hobby, is 80% salt. I bet there's significant overlap between hobbyists who hate salt but love General Cure.
There's plenty of scientific evidence for the use of salt to treat Columnaris and nitrite toxicity. Additionally, there's evidence that it does reduce stress and increase survival rate during stressful situations such as shipping.
Freshwater are under a lot of osmotic stress because their environment is hypoosmotic. In fact, one way scientists determine if something stresses fish is to see how well fish cope with osmotic stress.
The dying fish you see in stores laying on the bottom hyperventilating are dealing with acid-base imbalances and osmoregulation challenges. They're not just trying to excrete ammonia or have "burned" gills. That's why I recommend treating transport stress with salt.
Less known is that there's some kind of sodium-ammonium exchanger in the gills. Ammonium goes out while sodium goes in. What do you think happens when ammonia levels in the blood are high and sodium levels in the water are low?

There's plenty of scientific evidence for the use of salt to treat Columnaris and nitrite toxicity. Additionally, there's evidence that it does reduce stress and increase survival rate during stressful situations such as shipping.
Freshwater are under a lot of osmotic stress because their environment is hypoosmotic. In fact, one way scientists determine if something stresses fish is to see how well fish cope with osmotic stress.
The dying fish you see in stores laying on the bottom hyperventilating are dealing with acid-base imbalances and osmoregulation challenges. They're not just trying to excrete ammonia or have "burned" gills. That's why I recommend treating transport stress with salt.
Less known is that there's some kind of sodium-ammonium exchanger in the gills. Ammonium goes out while sodium goes in. What do you think happens when ammonia levels in the blood are high and sodium levels in the water are low?
