how much salt is safe?

[wickeded]

I have read many sources saying that a bit of salt in fresh water is beneficial. Be it controversial in its truth, I decided to give it a try with some non-iodized 'Kosher salt'.

But I'm not sure how much salt is safe?
On a sidenote, will it affect the pH?

Any comments will be appreciated (including whether I should salt or not)-

Thanks!
WE

 

[rich311k]

This is one of the great debates. I personally feel that it is a FW aquarium and see no reason to add any salt. My tanks and fish seem very healthy to me.

What kind of fish are you keeping?

 

[DepotFish]

Depends what kind of fish. Some freshwater species don't tolerate salt well at all. Others can handle a lot. For my goldfish, bettas, livebearers, loaches, and pumpkinseed I go as high as 1T per 10 gallons. I keep some salt in the water but the actual amount rises and falls as I do water changes. I don't actually measure, I just toss the salt in when I feel that it needs more.

 

[bs6749]

"Salt" is a general term use to describe the product of an acid-base reaction. There are literally thousands of salts. Some of them will effect the pH and others will not. We are just going over this stuff in chemistry and the effects of salts on pH. The salt that you specified (sodium chloride/NaCl) will have absolutely no effect on the pH of the water. Salts form ions when placed in water and the ions that WILL effect the pH are salts that are the products of weak acids/bases reacting. Salts composed of the following ions in their entirety (only those ions formed from the compound) will have no effect on the pH: Na+, K+, LI+, Ca+2, Ba+2, Sr+2, NO3-, ClO4-, Cl-, Br-, I-, SO4-2. Example, you can have CaCl2, Ba(NO3)2, and KI (all salts) in your tank and your pH will remain the same. If you have other salts that contain ammonium (NH4+) for example in a salt, say NH4Cl or NH4NO3, only the NH4+ will have an effect on the Ph of the water. I could tell you how much it would change in just water if you told me the amount put in but buffers in the tank would make the calculations off. They would lessen the impact of the pH change.

 

[coldmachineUK]

Research by Cech and Moyle (2003) has shown that salt (the pure NaCl - aka 'aquarium salt' in the common tongue) has proven to reduce stress in fish during transporation from the wild.

I don't see any merit in adding it as a regular thing. If you want to reduce stress for some reason then it may prove helpful. It can also be useful for treating an outbreak of whitespot (ich). I call 'aquarium salt' a 'tonic salt' for these reasons.

Marine salt is a whole other ball game. It buffers pH, increases the specific gravity (i.e. salinity) of your tank's water, and adds necessary elements such as magnesium & co. to the water. You don't want to be adding that unless you keep brackish or marine fish. Likewise, if you are keeping brackish or marine fish it'd be silly to use aquarium salt...!

 

[tropicfishman]

it does depend on the fish, I've heard a couple different amounts, I think it also depends on what kind of salt your using, but I've heard anywhere from 1 tsp a gallon to 2 tsp a gallon

 

[wickeded]

Thanks for all the advice!
Fish I have are:

Otocinclus'
Guppies
Mollies
Black Neon Tetras
Ghost shrimps and Malaysian Trumpet snails

Can't quite remember the exact numbers, but the following book I read a while ago
http://www.amazon.com/Fishkeepers-Guide-Healthy-Aquarium/dp/1564651614
suggested using different amounts of salt for different purposes - (my memory is bad, but something like 1tsp/gal for 'general application', 2.75tsp/gal for 'preventive', a lot more for 'salt bath' and so on <-- please note that these are not exact numbers.).

 

[coldmachineUK]

If you have otos in the tank I would advise against using salt at all. They're extremely sensitive to it
Likewise, your tetra will probably not appreciate it...

The mollies and guppies (and shrimp in general but I'm not certain about ghost shrimp) will in fact do better with it.