Taps Mickey
Aquarium Salt or not??
I have a 50 gal. acrylic planted aquarium with 12 fish(2 red-eye tetra, 3 other kind of tetra
Oh my, I apologize for so many questions.. For my fishes sake, I need to know..!.!.! Thanks! Much Appreciated!
Good questions and interesting timing as I have just had a very lively and entertaining debate on this subject.
I advocate the use of salt in freshwater aquariums for several reasons.
1. Osmotic pressure. It provides a chemical very important to osmotic regulation that is otherwise difficult for the fish to obtain.
2. It is used in almost every commercial breeding facility in the US, certainly all of the large breeders and my educated guess would be over 95% of all commercial breeders add salt. So what are the odds your fish are used to salt in the water? Further, salt at levels around 0.1 – 0.5% solution are found in the majority of waters where these fishes evolved and are collected ( the one’s that are collected instead of commercially raised) so you can say you are adding what is found in there “native” environment, even if that’s a breeders ponds.
3. Disease control. Even at levels as low as 0.25% solution salt will kill or inhibit several parasites and fungi. In addition salt will promote the growth of a significant slime coat on the fish adding further protection from parasites, protozoans and fungii.
4. Salt will in no way damage or inhibit your bacteria cycle at these levels. Period. It will not harm any of your equipment at these low levels however at high concentrations can cause minor etching in acrylic, but that’s at levels above What You would typical see even for disease treatment.
The only Con to salt use that I know of is with plants. Some few are rather sensitive to salt and can’t take even this low level, but those are fairly few. Most plants have no problem with a 0.25% salt content and most will tolorate a 1% solution with no ill effects.
Many, many benefits scientifically proven and only one proven con, sounds like a winner to me.
MM
