cats and salt

[pug]

I have Guppies and Plats and use one tablespoon of salt to 5 gal are there any algae eaters that will be able to handle the salt in the water. I would like to get a few ottos but don't know if it will stand the salt

[cocoa_pleco]

i dont think so. ottos are sensitive

[Lady Hobbs]

Cats can't handle the salt. It burns their skin. My platies do just fine without it.

[pug]

Thanks for the reply. I was afraid of that, are there any algae eaters that can handle the salt or should i just start cutting down slow till my fish are used to fresh water? The salt is for better colored fish but it has really limited what I can have in the aquarium

[cocoa_pleco]

In my opinion, salt is only good for hospital tanks.

[Fishguy2727]

Guppies and platies do not need salt. Color improvement is achieved with better food and better water quality. Just stop using it. The only time salt should help anything is if something else is really wrong.

[Gelo_USA]

ohhh... I didnt knw tht... I was about to open a new thread asking about salt on the water
I always keep it at 1tbsp per 5 gallon.. and everytime I do a water change I would dissolve the quantity of salt on the water before putting it on the tank to keep the salt level....
now I will start to do water changes without putting any salt at all.... u guys think it would be bad for the fishes not to have salt now since they r used to it?
I have an angel some black tetras some pristella tetras some cory cats platys and tiger barbs...
thanks

[Chrona]

ohhh... I didnt knw tht... I was about to open a new thread asking about salt on the water
I always keep it at 1tbsp per 5 gallon.. and everytime I do a water change I would dissolve the quantity of salt on the water before putting it on the tank to keep the salt level....
now I will start to do water changes without putting any salt at all.... u guys think it would be bad for the fishes not to have salt now since they r used to it?
I have an angel some black tetras some pristella tetras some cory cats platys and tiger barbs...
thanks

Only uses of salt:

1) If you keep mollies, they like 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons to keep healthy
2) Treating ich or similar external parasite
3) Treating nitrite poisoning

Only in case 1 would you keep the salt in the tank for more than 1-2 weeks

[Gelo_USA]

ohhh okkk....
so there is no problem if I cut the salt out right.....
thankss...

[cocoa_pleco]

and youre not supposed to add the same amount each time. The salt doesnt get evaporated like water and you have to cut the ammt. of salt.

[Gelo_USA]

and youre not supposed to add the same amount each time. The salt doesnt get evaporated like water and you have to cut the ammt. of salt.


Yea... what I was doing is....
I do 25% water changes everyweek wich is 10gallons so I would remove the 10g of water from the tank.. in the 10gallons tht I treated to add to the tank I would replace salt for the ammount of water tht was removed... In my case I would add 2 spoons to the water being treated to do the water change but now I will stop since I dont need it...... it was just a misunderstandment on my part.. I never asked and the guy at the petshop said I should add some salt everytime I add new fish and they get stressed so I bought the salt and read the directions and I was following it thinking it was needed all the time......and not only when the fish got stressed.....

[pug]

I was going by Elmers website that recommends the salt for color and health of the livebarers. but if its not needed then I will stop. I had never heard of adding salt when introducing fish for stress does it really work?

[Gelo_USA]

I think it does because one time I had 4 fish in my tank tht were on the bottom stressed like the would just lay there as if they were really DEAD no movement they would turn sideways just as if they wre dead and the guy at the petshop told me to add salt to the water and as soon as the salt hit the bottom of the tank the fish were swimming already....
but they died anyways.....
those are the only fish I had dying in my tank ever... before I knew about cycling and everything else.....no more fatalities thanks to AC and all members hre

[Sasquatch]

I did the same thing as you did and I can say that platies don't really need salt. I have 5 in my 10g, we started off adding salt because we'd read it here and there it seemed like a good idea.

But then we decided to add a catfish, and they don't like salt too much. So we stopped adding salt to the water changes and gradually (over about 3 weeks, while the cat was in quarantine) lowered the salt level.

Our fish are as healthy as ever and if anything, more colorful. Color has more to do with good nutrition and lack of stress. Our tuxedo male is really gorgeous and our wagtail female is so orange that we can barely see the gravid spot.

Just lower the salt gradually. We were doing about 20% water changes twice a week and our platies were fine.

[Fishguy2727]

The salt level will drop slowly as you just don't add more with water changes.

Those fish that swam when salt was added may have breen running from it.

I never used salt with my platies and they were the biggest and best looking ones I have ever seen.

[Gelo_USA]

they were platys... I dnt knw if they were running from it but it did make them move because they were just DEAD rolling around in the tank and I knw they werent sleeping because when fish sleep they still move their fins to keep balance and they were just THERE DEAD..... when I added salt they started moving instantly

[Fishguy2727]

As said before the only time it should help is if something else is really wrong. So there may have been something else wrong that you were not aware of. Whatever caused it that is the past. In the end they do better without any salt.

[kenyth]

Corydoras catfish actually have scales. They are also Labyrinth breathers. What I'm trying to say is that they are a very tough and adaptive species of catfish that can handle a wide variety of water conditions. 1 Tbsp. of salt per 5 gallons shouldn't give them pause IMHO.

[Rue]

I've used salt and not used salt...in general I have healthier, more active fish...and less disease issues when I add tonic levels of salt...

I don't know how much local water chemisty has to do with it, if anything...but as long as we live here, I'm salting my tanks...my corys have never been affected by the salt, to my knowledge...

BTW...if you buy fish at Petsmart...they all salt their tanks...so the fish are used to it...if you don't...you might want to drip acclimate the fish to your saltless tank...

[Fishguy2727]

Many species of cories are actually very senesitive to water conditions. There are A LOT of species of corydoras, so there is a varying level of hardiness in the genus. Many of them are very tough, but unfortunately for them that means they will not show signs of stress outright. What looks 'fine' could end up meaning a shorter lifespan because they actually were not in the best conditions. It also leads to issues such as slower growth, poorer coloration, and health issues. As said, usually when salt 'helps' that means there is something else wrong with the water, which is where water parameters (such as from your tap) come in to play. These are fish that are from some of the most acidic and softest waters on the planet. They have been evolving to this for millions of years. You cannot undo that with a few generations of captive breeding, they are still softwater fish and their physiology is not made for waters with a lot of dissolved solids of any kind. There are very few freshwater fish that need salt to do better. The two main ones are mollies (because they are actually brackish, put the domestic 'breeds' not a lower salting level than their wild counterparts). The other type are the African rift lake cichlids which are from water with known levels of certain salts at certain concentrations. Outside of this salt will actually do more harm long term than any short term benefits may show.