RabbitsAreSlow

I know the topic is, supposedly, widely debated and often discussed, BUT I did a search and turned up poor results. Here's the situation. Short and simple mind you. Went to usual trusted fishstore to pick up miscellaneous part. Wound up talking with the owner for a while. Discussed problem I was having with wife's 10g tanks. She has two mollies, bala shark, angel, and two albino cories. One of her mollies' face looks like it has suffered some poor water quality deterioration. Mentioned it to owner and he suggested adding API freshwater aquarium salt to the water. It's said and he agreed that it helps with the fishes electrolytes and helps cure disease. Now here are my two questions...
1. Should I go ahead and add the salt as the fish store owner said it would not hurt the other fish and should definitely help with the mollies issues?
2. I mentioned my tank was a community tank with nothing but a variety of tetras plus 4 cories and 1 brushynose pleco and he said I could add the freshwater aquarium salt to my tank also and it would not hurt anything. Is this true? Should I add it?
***I read the product label and it did say it helps add electrolytes to the water to help fish health and color...***
Please help me out is it safe or am I risking hurting or even worse, killing my fish and my wife's? Thanks guys as always!

iloveengl

It sounds more like the 10g is overstocked and the fish is suffering from poor water conditions because of that, in which case a water change is necessary, not aquarium salt.

From what I've seen, read, and heard, adding aquarium salt is an outdated idea from before aquarists knew much about the chemical/bacterial goings-on and it was used as a cure-all. Aquarium salt can indeed be detrimental to many FW fish (including cories!), and completely harmless to others (mostly those that fall in the brackish category like Mollies, Platys, and Guppies).

IMHO, I would not use aquarium salt in either tank. What are your water parameters in that 10g?

Edit: bala sharks reach an adult size of 13 inches. Mollies run about 3-4 and are big waste producers. I know cory cats like a decent sized bottom to nose around.

Shawnie

1. NO i wouldnt add salt..your cories, pleco, angels specifically, will not do well with it.....using salt is more old school and all it does it make a fish overproduce their slime coat for healing...
You can do partial water changes and add stress coat+ to get more safer results .. ..adding 2 drops of fresh garlic juice with each water change, will help stimulate eating and help them built up their immune system as well.....
Do you have your readings for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates for the tank ? if you fill in your aquarium info under my settings, it would help us not to have to ask questions about such things.....but thats just my 2 cents

mathas

Unless you're trying to counteract nitrite toxicity, salt is essentially useless in my opinion. For more information, read the following two pages:

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/salt.shtml
http://aquascienceresearch.com/APInfo/Salt.htm