Salt (NaCl) is this salt safe?

[DeLgAdO]

aqurium salt is a huge ripoff. Any of the table salts work fine and won't hurt your fish. People worry about the iodine and anti-caking agents.

Fish actually need iodine, just as people do and that's why it's in a lot of table salts. The anti-caking agents are easily safe enough for us to eat and also for our fish. I haven't paid for aquarium salt in years. This is yet another thing the pet industry loves to make money off of.

windsurfer

indeed fish do need iodine, but the iodine in table salt is too much, and too much of any substance results in poisoning

 

[mostlycichlids]

A cheep alternative is non iodinized salt you can get it at any grocery store for less than a dollar then you will have no worries. I would not put regular table salt in my tanks but I guess that is just me and freshwater fish dont need salt anyway unless you are treating for disease.

 

[DeLgAdO]

Boguht some salt at Lowes today, it says 99.5% sodium chloride, is this pond and aquarium safe?

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=162421-62226-3983&lpage=none

Thanks in advance...

personally i wouldnt worry, the other percent is most likely other mineral salts

i use water softener salt and its 99.6 SC

 

[RadleyMiller]

Thats water softener salt, which means it is used in drinking water. It is fine. Bleach is hyperclorate.

 

[is300zx]

indeed fish do need iodine, but the iodine in table salt is too much, and too much of any substance results in poisoning

http://www.**************.com/articles/water/salt.html

Iodine is a halogen, and is required for vertebrates. It is necessary for our metabolism as an essential part of thyroid hormone, which is our metabolic pacemaker. Soils in wide areas of this country are deficient in iodine, and can result in goiter (hypertrophy of the thyroid gland, effectively from insufficient iodine intake). Thus the practice arose of adding iodide to salt intended for human consumption. This was the safest (the levels of iodine are minute) and surest way of protecting the population from this deficiency as salt is ubiquitous (all but universal) in food processing and preparation. The levels of iodide added to table salt are so small that any water-living vertebrate would be pickled in brine well before toxic concentrations of iodine/iodide could be reached, so that particular urban myth is without foundation. In fact, a number of our tank inhabitants need iodine- most crustaceans have a significant demand for the material, and a number of fish can develop goiter in captivity from the lack of iodine- African Rift Lake fish seem especially prone to this. The often-discussed toxicity of iodine could be considered urban myth #1.

 

[RadleyMiller]

Yea, about the iodine thing, there are supplents from Kent called Reef Iodine

 

[CHOMPERS]

I recognize that this is flawed thinking, but it is a curriosity none the less. On one hand this seems relavant but on the other it does not. Here goes...

A few years ago I had Iodine Poisioning. It is what people get from eating shellfish and/or are alergic to shellfish. I pigged out of shrimp and oysters for a week during a trip to Palm Beach Gardens. Just for the fact that they can accumulate that much iodine tells me that there is more than miniscule amounts in ocean water.

Bottom dwellers have a higher accumulation of iodine than regular fish because regular fish sink to the bottom when they die (usually and eventually). Guess who eats the dead fish...the bottom dwellers. Now the bottom get their saturation of iodine from the ocean like the other fish, but when they eat the fish they accumulate their iodine too. Iodine btw takes a while for the body to expell. I ate at least four pounds of shrimp in three days. The other four days involved seafood too. Oysters are filter feeders and have a very high concentraion too. My doctor didn't focus on the sewage in the ocean, or any of the nasties that the Navy dumps overboard, or any of the other trace minerals. She focused on the iodine. It is measureable, but I do not know to what extent.

 

[CHOMPERS]

Thats water softener salt, which means it is used in drinking water. It is fine. Bleach is hyperclorate.

It took me a while to find someone to correct me on the same thinking in water softeners. The salt is not added to the drinking water. The softening is done by resin beads. The beads have a predictable life expectancy and they are rechargable using the salt. During the recharge cycle, the used salt is flushed out to a drain field, dry well, or the sewer.

And to be specific, bleach is Sodium Hypochlorite. You are right in that the working end of the molecule is the hypochlorite. The chemical formula is Na(OCl). It can be made from salt. Salt is dissolved in water and then run through charged plates. The salt ions then react with the water. The excess hydrogen either gasses off or forms hydrochloric acid. In the formation of hydrochloric acid, hypochloric acid is also produced which is what we recieve in our tap water as chlorine. The addition of any form of chlorine to water eventually results in the formation of hypochlorous acid. "Form of chlorine" meaning Sodium Hypochlorite, Calcium Hypochlorite, Lithium Hypochlorite, Cl2 gas, etc.

Ionic salts do not directly form hypochlorous acid because of thier ionic bonds and pairing. They will not react with water unless the H-O-H bond is broken with either the charged plates or another chemical reaction.

 

[CHOMPERS]

Crap, I knew that too, and I blew it. One demerit.

But hey, you were thinking!!! And that is more than what most people do You get one Brownie Point.

 

[CHOMPERS]

... is Sodium Hypochlorite...

One more bit of trivia that might be interesting...The Sodium in bleach forms Sodium Hydroxide when it is in solution. Sodium Hydroxide is the active ingredient in the original Liquid Plumber. It is probably still used, but I haven't checked. Want to whiten your clothes? Add bleach. Want to eat holes in them? Add bleach.