Salt Bath questions, aka I really should do more research BEFORE hand

I have been worried about my guppies for a couple weeks now. As I've posted elsewhere, they've been showing white streaks on their tail and dorsal fins (but don't look fuzzy or anything like that, just like a bleaching).

I initially moved them into a secondary tank and dosed with tetra fungus guard, (the worst cases getting a secondary dose before being moved back to the main tank), but didn't appear to be much better. This was earlier in the week.

Asking the guy at the LFS, who did seem to know what he was talking about, he advised to do a salt bath before trying anything else. He told me it was a gentle treatment that tended to get anything minor without a lot of headache. So I bought a small carton of aquarium salt, and proceeded to dose the tank. The LFS guy said 1tbsp for 10 gallon of water, but the carton, and online sources stated anywhere from 1tbsp per gallon to 1tbsp per 5 gallons. I went with the median and added 4tbsp for my 20 gallon tank when I did a water change today.

Now I'm seeing information that says I might have messed up my tank in doing this. I'm now worried about my plants and my fish even more, and wondering if I should do a drastic water change to dilute the salt content down a lot!

Please help

 

A salt bath is when you put the fish in a separate container/tank with salt water and leave them in there for about 30min or when they seem distressed. I don't know about salt and plants but yes I would do a water change to dilute and if you still need to do a salt bath/dip.

 

A salt bath is when you put the fish in a separate container/tank with salt water and leave them in there for about 30min or when they seem distressed. I don't know about salt and plants but yes I would do a water change to dilute and if you still need to do a salt bath/dip.

guy at the store said to just add it to the tank. guess I should make sure to always double check before hand from now on

 

Yeah and it could be that some do it that way I don't know. I do mine in a separate little tank because a few of my fish can't have salt anyways. I'm sorry that happened. I hope your babies are okay.

 

Yeah and it could be that some do it that way I don't know. I do mine in a separate little tank because a few of my fish can't have salt anyways. I'm sorry that happened. I hope your babies are okay.

well, I know guppies are supposed to handle brackish water just fine, some say even thrive. It's more the dosage of it that i"m worried about, and the shrimp and plants

 

alright, did a 50% water change.

On the plus side, that should bring my nitrates down. I'd measure them (after my 25% change earlier today) at 15. SO theoretically this should bring them down under 10

 

well, I know guppies are supposed to handle brackish water just fine, some say even thrive. It's more the dosage of it that i"m worried about, and the shrimp and plants

Yeah guppies, mollies and I believe platies can be in either salt or freshwater it's my tetras and pleco that will be okay but they don't like it. I really wish I could give you answers about your plants but I don't know. Shrimp I believe will be okay. I think your dosage of salt will be okay but I would do a water change when you can just to be safe but I think you'll be okay. Keep me updated though!

 

Yeah guppies, mollies and I believe platies can be in either salt or freshwater it's my tetras and pleco that will be okay but they don't like it. I really wish I could give you answers about your plants but I don't know. Shrimp I believe will be okay. I think your dosage of salt will be okay but I would do a water change when you can just to be safe but I think you'll be okay. Keep me updated though!

as I said, I've just finished doing a 50% change, so now I'll give it a day and monitor the residents of the tank for issues.