Aquarium salt?

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Angelfish56

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I recently put a spotted leaf fish in with my angelfish and the person at the store said that they needed aquarium salt is that true and if it is will it be safe for my angels and Cory catfish
 
Using aquarium salt all of the time with freshwater fish is harmful long term.

Amazonian leaf fish, Monocirrhus polyacanthus, are pure freshwater fish, not brackish. No reason to use salt. Angel are the same way.

The only time you should use salt in a freshwater tank is as needed to treat illness.
 
This is my leaf fish
 

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I got him at Petsmart he was in a bare tank with 5 big Bala sharks and one other leaf fish
 
So pretty! How does he get on with your angels? That's a type of gourami, right?
 
Fishguy2727 said:
Using aquarium salt all of the time with freshwater fish is harmful long term.

Amazonian leaf fish, Monocirrhus polyacanthus, are pure freshwater fish, not brackish. No reason to use salt. Angel are the same way.

The only time you should use salt in a freshwater tank is as needed to treat illness.

I have to respectfully disagree. They make salt for freshwater aquariums that help with stress coats. You're suppose to add about a rounded tablespoon per 5 gallons. But you have to make sure that it is the stress coat salt. Marine salt will change a freshwater aquarium to a brackish. Which is clearly not helpful for pure freshwater fish...
 
This is a very common misconception. Aquarium salt should only be used for treating illnesses. Marine salt is just as effective. It is not just the type of salt that makes it brackish, but also the amount.

Just because a company makes it and claims it has certain benefits, doesn't make it true, needed, or even safe. Fish make their own slime coat, they don't get it from salt. If they do produce more slime coat when you add salt it is because salt is an irritant and their slime coat protects them.

Long term use of SALT in a FRESHWATER aqaurium is not safe. It can cause damage. The doses they recommend are well above what any body of freshwater has. The special salt for African Rift Lake cichlids uses half a tablespoon per ten gallons for Lake Tanganyika (probably the hardest and most alkaline body of freshwater in the world). That is 1/4 of what they want you to use in all your tanks. Why? Becuase it sells. Just because something doesn't cause immediate visible damage doesn't mean it isn't harmful.
 
But fish are always actively seeking out salt because in order to breath a fish must keep a high level of salt in their body. The high salt content in their body cause water to flow in. But adding a low amount of salt to water they can find this salt with ease, expending less energy to do so.
 
Have any of you ever done it before

I have angels, and I have only used salt to treat ich. My dad kept community tanks with angels, and he only used salt to treat ich or other parasites. The salinity of their natural habitat is almost nonexistent. On the other hand they sell aquarium salt at every LFS, and the workers there will tell you to add it long term.... The only tank I think it would be ok to keep salt in is a guppy tank, because they live in brackish water. Idk about your leaf fish, or where he is from. Google does though. lol

The man I recently bought some angels from wrote this.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...ttd&zw&sig=AHIEtbQQveilkmLKsIQt5Z6pMq6DSl81ag
 
I just looked these guys up, and they like soft acidic water. Doesn't salt increase water hardness?
 
But fish are always actively seeking out salt because in order to breath a fish must keep a high level of salt in their body. The high salt content in their body cause water to flow in. But adding a low amount of salt to water they can find this salt with ease, expending less energy to do so.
From what I am trying to understand, if you have too much salt in the water, and create imbalance between the chloride and sodium and the other soluables in the water (magnesium, calcium, etc.) then the fish is also stressed trying to osmoregulate... I got this from reading the article I posted. I don't fully understand it, but this guy does.
 
Correct. If you over salt your tank, the level of salt outside and inside you freshwater fish will be so close that it will be difficult for the fish to "breath." but adding some salt, about one tablespoon per five gallons, will reduce stress and allow your fish to keep their inner salinity better.
 
There are multiple articles undoing all the claimed benefits of constant salt use that have been published since a few companies made up some benefits of salt. Try to rely on information that isn't being used to sell a product.

Freshwater fish are exactly that, freshwater. Their gills and kidneys are made to handle freshwater. Again, that recommendation for a dose is absurdly high, 4x any natural body of freshwater, and dozens if not hundreds of times more than many bodies of freshwater (like any Amazonian fish, like the one being discussed in this thread).

To anyone reading this: Please research before using products based just on the manufacturer's claims. You CANNOT rely on back of the box science to run your tank. Check out this article for more information (the author got an article on salt use published in TFH magazine if I remember correctly):
Dispelling Some Myths about Adding Salt to FW Aquariums - Aquarium Forum
 
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