Pleco rumour, is it true?

[Donna]

Hi, been reading a few of the threads here and there was a rumour/advice that apparently, Plecos can't stand salt and it causes them a slow and painful death.... I was hoping to purchase a butterfly plec today to help with the algae in my tank so I thought I'd better check out this rumour first as I have been using Aquarium salt in my tank as a tonic for my fantails.

If anyone can tell me if this rumour is true or not, I'd very much appreciate it.

thanks in advance

Donna

 

[RazorbacksFan]

Pleco's do not have scales and tend to have problems with any kind of medication or salt but I have successfully used salt to treat ich with a pleco and cory cats in the tank by ramping up the salt very slowly and he was only exposed for around a week but was fine during that time.

 

[HN1]

Razor is right on. Aquarium salt shouldn't hurt them since it doesn't really create salt conditions, but IME it's a waste of time and only recommended to add a sale. The only tonic that fish need is clean water.

 

[darkmule27]

Regardless, a pleco is not a good tankmate for goldfish. Plecos are tropical while goldfish aren't.

 

[Donna]

Butterfly plecos as far as I know are coldwater. these are what I had in mind. According to my fish store, The coldwater plecs are ok with salt whereas the tropical ones might be more sensitive to it. anyway, I've stopped using the salt for now as a precaution.

 

[severum mama]

I'm guessing that the "butterfly pleco" is actually a hillstream loach, as I've seen them labeled this way in many LFSs. If this is the case, they do prefer coldwater tanks. Neither the hillstream nor the goldfish need any salt in the water. Aquarium salt as a general tonic is just another one of the perpetuated myths in the hobby. Your goldfish will be just fine without it.

 

[JustOneMore20]

I think Hillstream loaches eat things besides algae (like some protein) so I wouldn't count on it to cure your algae problem.

Its best to figure out what is causing the algae IMO than to add a fish to take care of the problem.

 

[Donna]

thanks everyone above. I'm not too worried about the algae really, my fishies like it when i scrape it off the tank side... they get a free meal! i just figured it might be nice to have something different in there and wanted to check out that rumour. I only ever wnat to do what's best for my fishies, they're so lovely! (I have a diva fish, who likes to be fed by hand, and a flirt. we discovered that the last fish we added was a boy, (white spots appeared on his gill plates) but he seems more interested in showing off to us than the other fish!

Will review the plec/loach situation and decide at later date. (once i've got the ammonia down to zero again, it's up a bit at the mo.)

thanks everyone
Donna