lent

Being new at this venture I have been advied to add sea salt to my freshwater tank to help fight disese. Would the salt effect the plants.
Suggested was 1gram per litre. Can anyone help.

Dino

It is not really neccessary.
Salt acts as an irretant, causing fresh water fish to increase their slime coat, their first line of defense against diseases.

Buying from clean sources and keeping up on tank maintainence will do a lot more to keep fish healthy than adding salt.

BTW, WELCOME TO FISHLORE!!!!!

bmxer193

like dino said its not neccessary but it is good to have a little bit in the tank. As for the plants i dont know how this would effect them but i dont think it would affect them in a good way. I use to put salt in my molly tank (1 tbp for every 5 gal i think) untill i put snails in there

bmxer193

o and Welcome to the forums!

COBettaCouple

welcome to fishlore!

bhcaaron

My LFS lady said to add salt, not as a treatment against illness, but, as a means of providing necessary minerals a fish needs in the water. Is this true? She made a good point in stating that though providing as neutral and as clean a water as we can is best, this also eliminates minerals a fish would normally find in its natural habitat.

Isabella

Lent and Aaron, to my knowledge and experience, aquarium salt is not necessary in a freshwater tank with healthy fish. I'd personally use aquarium salt in my tanks only if I had sick fish. I mean, I really don't know if it's healthy or not for fish to be in a tank with salt for prolonged periods of time because I'm hearing so many opinions on this matter. I never add salt to any of my freshwater tanks and my fish are perfectly healthy. There are 3 types of tanks: freshwater, brackish, and saltwater. Freshwater has no salt in it, brackish has a bit of salt and harder water, and saltwater has a lot of salt (duh, lol) and the hardest water. Fish living in lakes and rivers will never have as much salt in their water (if any at all) as fish in oceans and other water bodies with salt.

If you want to be 100% sure whether you should be adding salt to your tank, find out exactly in what kinds of waters the fish you have naturally live. Then, find out if these waters have any salt in them - and if they do, what the salt concentrations are. And then, add to your tank such a salt concentration as the natural body of water from which your fish come from has. Otherwise, why add salt if your fish are healthy? It's best not to meddle with water chemistry.

P.S. I don't think adding salt to a planted tank is a good idea.

bhcaaron

Thank you. Once I settle on a fish, I'll have to research its natural home.

COBettaCouple

I'm afraid she's half-way to getting it partially right. The reason that we use treated tap water is that distilled water lacks necessary minerals. The aquarium salt will not provide those minerals. The water conditioners only remove things like chlorine, chlorimines and heavy metals so salt isn't needed in freshwater tanks.

bhcaaron

In my case, my tap water is WAY high in nitrate. I haven't picked up the report yet, but, I'd almost hate to find out what else is in there. So, when using distilled, what can you do to put such minerals back in?

jsalemi

If you're going to spend the money for distilled, you may just want to get jugs of spring water instead. Buy a gallon at your local store and check out the chemistry. At worst, if it isn't good for your tank you can drink it.

Butterfly

If it's high in Nitrates then fill the tank full of live plants they will love it.
Distilled water has the minerals taken out, If you don't want to use your tap water then use Drinking water in jugs(can get them in 1 gallon and 7 gallon size ) or spring water. the drinking water is less expensive.
Carol

bhcaaron

Yeah, I was thinking about plants. But, then it would be more difficult to hunt for the fry.