Using aquarium salt in a sunfish tank

[cslascro]

Hello all,

I'm wondering if anyone here uses aquarium salt in their sunfish tank as a general tonic all of the time. I've found it to work very well in my goldfish tank, so I've added it to my sunfish tank.

Today I noticed that my two smallest fish (5" red spotted sunfish) are not eating. They were the most active/hungry up until now. They appear to be gasping, but are still swimming and aren't clamped. I went ahead and did a 40% water change because I noticed that the Nitrates were at 40ppm and the Nitrites were rising into the "caution" zone. The little sunfish showed no interest in food after the water change, but I'm thinking they might need a little time to recover if that's what is bothering them.

After the water change, however, I began to wonder if the salt may be bothering them.

Thanks for your input.

 

[tomomothy]

Gasping can be a sign of low oxygen, usually because you have insufficient aeration or your tank is too warm for your aeration set up. What are your other tank parameters and whats the back story? did you suddenly add salt to a tank that hadnt had salt before or increase your salt dosing?

 

[Cod]

agree with tomomothy, lack or aeration or ur water is too warm

 

[Shenanigans]

I have acclimated other species of sunfish to high-end brackish to almost full marine environments, with no ill effects to the fish. I would look into problems other than the salt.