Salt Safe for Snales?

[Zerileous]

My 10g has 5 guppies and 4 mystry snales. The guppies all have a mild case of finrot, probably from the stress of a recent transportation. It will probably get better on its own, but I was wondering if it would be safe to add a small ammount of aquarium salt to the tank to facilitate healing? Primarily, I am concerned with the health of the snales.

It would be possible to isolate the fish for treatment, but impractical.

Also, APIs site says that mealfix is invert safe, but I don't want to do something as drastic as medication unless it seems like it is developing into a serious problem.

[cocoa_pleco]

i would say just use the melafix/pimafix combo. Melafix and pimafix are safe for almost all fish and can even be used on scaleless fish like clown loaches. Snails shouldnt be affected by it

[GoldLenny]

If you have Melafix on hand, you could dose the tank. I also find that doing frequent 25% PWC's (partial water changes) to improve water quality and chemistry is the best thing to solve finrot issues. After each 25% PWC, just add your daily melafix dose. Remember to remove the carbon from your filter.

[Lady Hobbs]

Why do we read here so much to use a combination of Melafix and Primafix. Aren't they the same treatment pretty much? I wonder if it's necessary to double dose.

The fins will grow back just fine by doing weekly water changes. I use nothing unless absolutely necessary.

[cocoa_pleco]

melafix and pimafix are supposedly mela for bacteria and pima for fungal. I dunno, i just use both when a fish isnt looking too sharp

[Nautilus291]

I wouldnt suggest using salt at all. Have you ever taken a snail from your back yard and put salt on it. Well if you havent they melt. IDK if it does the same to aquatic snails but I wouldnt try it unless I was trying to get rid of them.

[Zerileous]

i did think of that analogy nautilus, but it didn't sway me much because the majority of snales on this earth are marine (salt water).

I think ill just try the water quality method. I am just a little nervous because I am about to go on vacation for 2 weeks. My mom has instructions to get some melafix if it gets worse, but I am just worried about being gone.

[Mdsuave13]

you CAN use salt on invertabrates, including snails. Use the 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons as a good starting point. I have used salt on EVERY tank i have ever owned, include scaleless fish like clown loaches, tetras etc. My LFS uses salt in every tank and don't have any problems with it.

Just make sure that the salt does not Touch the snails in its whole form. Put your salt in a net and let it dissolve instead of just throwing spoonfuls in.

Good luck.

[gm72]

Mdsuave, make sure you pay attention to the dates at the upper left corner of the posts. He was looking for replies before he went on vacation, which was about 2 weeks ago. I learned the hard way, too.

[Mdsuave13]

well cripes. My bad.. I figured that even if he didn't see it, maybe someone else could benefit from this info.

[gm72]

Yeah, no big deal! I think everyone new here ends up posting at least once to an old thread. Most of the people who were following it have since unsubscribed from it and don't usually see the replies after a while.

[dev]

I think it's quite allright to post to an old thread if you have relevant information.

After all, one of the most important strenghts of a forum is the ability to search for answers in old threads :)

I wouldnt dream of posting a new question until I tried a search.

Which is why you don't want irrelevant posts such as this one cluttering up the threads .. um :p

[gm72]

It is okay to post to old threads, but some people don't understand that they are old to begin with, ask a question of their own, and become discouraged when no one replies.