To Salt Or Not To Salt?

[jetajockey]

Hello jjock...

Apologies for not getting back to you earlier. Well, na is sodium and cl is chlorine, both are elements since we're nitpicking a little. Aquarium salt inhibits the intake of nitrogen by the fishes' gills, so they can't as easily be damaged by forms of nitrogen like ammonia and nitrite. By easing the stress on the gill tissues, the fish is calmer, so they breath more easily. Granted large, frequent water changes will eliminate this water problem.

Aquarium salt has been used for decades as a treatment for various diseases associated with fish scales or skin, if you will. It encourages mucus production that removes parasites inside the gills and other fish body parts.

You can be blunt if you like, but salt is far from a myth. The old timey water keepers have used nacl for a very long time, especially with livebearing fish, one of my favs. Your term "wives' tale" is based on quite a bit of fact, so I wouldn't dismiss all of it.

As I stated earlier, the use of salt is up to the water keeper. Just didn't want you and anyone else to think my statements had absolutely no backup.

Good talking with you, hope I answered most of your concerns.

B

Hi B.

I'm aware of nitrite toxicity and using salt as a treatment to deal with it. I would like to see some documentation on how ammoniacal nitrogen is affected by the addition of salt.

The stress thing..in a normal clean environment, the fish doesn't have stress breathing to begin with, so again we are talking about using salt as a treatment for an underlying problem, if the fish are struggling to breathe correctly.

I'm well aware that the old timers used salt for ages, that's why the mythology doesn't go away easily. It's unfortunate however that people just jump on the bandwagon without actually understanding why they do what they do, when we have the means and information available today to grasp a better understanding of it. If we take the time to learn more about it, we gain a better understanding of how to properly apply it.

About using Nacl with livebearers. Sorta? Adding table salt to freshwater is sorta kinda like brackish water. If you are trying to replicate the brackish environment that some of the euryhaline livebearers are/were naturally found in, why aren't you using marine salt mix? It'd make a lot more sense to me anyhow.

Aquarium salt has been used for decades as a treatment for various diseases associated with fish scales or skin, if you will. It encourages mucus production that removes parasites inside the gills and other fish body parts.

We've agreed this entire time that salt use as a medication is warranted, there's many things that salt treatments can deal with. Recommending it to treat an ailment is not the same as recommending it be added to the water indefinitely just because of an unwarranted fear of parasites, diseases, and a desire to have mucus laden fish.

Best,
David

 

[Delapool]

This is pretty interesting.

I did some more reading last night and salt suggested for transport ranged from 0.1 or 0.3 or 0.5 or 0.9% (so take your pick really). And for similar reasons of reducing stress / energy demands. However I couldn't find an actual study on that. But didn't find anything saying it was bad. Still that was all short term and not long term.

 

[mattcham]

Anybody here work at Petco or Petsmart? If the answer to this age old question is known, then I'm sure that the management of major fish store chains would make it standard protocol, especially if the short term health benefits were statistically significant.

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[Delapool]

Yes - you would think so.

Apparently channel catfish and rainbow trout I think it was were used to re-stock fishing dams and they wanted the fish in good condition straight away. So my next search point is to see what they did in the dams but I'm guessing cost will be a factor. My lfs is of the opinion that as long as they use the same tap water as people will be using, most of their job is done (which is probably true and saves money).

I've got to go and look at my tap water quality report and compare that to small salt dosage rates and just see what the impact is. Also for gh. Quite interesting.

 

[Coyne]

Anybody here work at Petco or Petsmart? If the answer to this age old question is known, then I'm sure that the management of major fish store chains would make it standard protocol, especially if the short term health benefits were statistically significant.

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That's cute. While I don't want to start a "bash the big boxes" conversation, the folks at these places aren't the most reliable for accurate information. I overhear bad advice from their employees on a regular basis.
If you were to go in and ask them if you should add salt to your tank, then they will likely answer "yes" because then you will buy salt from them.

 

[jetajockey]

Anybody here work at Petco or Petsmart? If the answer to this age old question is known, then I'm sure that the management of major fish store chains would make it standard protocol, especially if the short term health benefits were statistically significant.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Aquarium Advice mobile app

According to one of my local petsmart employees, they don't. The main reason was because they have all of their tanks on the same system.

I don't think anyone debates that farms use some salt in shipping. But then again, some use antibiotics in shipping as well. So when debaters use the train of thought that they should salt long term since they are shipped that way, then they should also be keeping methylene blue and oxytetracycline in their system to "help with stress".

I'm not sure why people have randomly 'stressed' fish in their tanks, but it sounds like a much larger underlying problem if it's so frequent that it warrants perpetual salt use.

So far the only defense has been:

Helps with stress- Fair enough, but your fish shouldn't be stressed 24/7 or you are doing something wrong.

Increase slime coat - It really does, but why would you want to? Extra mucus by irritation might help if a fish is beat up, but what's the point in subjecting them to it on a daily basis for no reason?

Kills parasites- Salt works great at killing parasites. But parasites don't magically appear in tank systems. There was a time when people thought they did, but we've learned better since. Proper quarantine and good maintenance drastically reduces any potential for parasites, and once they are dealt with, they are gone.

So in every one of those top 3 examples it can be clearly understood that salt does serve a beneficial purpose as a temporary medication, not a perpetual water conditioner.


Sent from Peabody's rabbit hole.

 

[Delapool]

Yes but how do you define fish stress?
And how do you know when you have improved it?

In reverse I'm not seeing anything to discourage to the point where it seems this could go on forever and I should set up my own tank to try. Just saying, I'm not convinced on long term salt use but not totally discouraged on it either. I appreciate the discussion as it helps immensely. What I'm stuck on is that if I did set it up, how do I tell if there is a benefit after say 6 months?

 

[jetajockey]

Stress is a pretty broad term, unfortunately.

I would guess that if you weren't convinced by the lack of scientific evidence then a side by side test could be done.

The problem with the pro salt crowd is they often use very generic statements like " oh I've been doing this for years and my fish are happy" or something similar. These statements do little if anything to qualify the use of salt. If I sing to my fish every night before bed and they stay healthy, does it then mean that my singing cures and prevents fish diseases?

As far as discouragement goes, something to ponder. River systems eventually reach the ocean, right? What keeps freshwater fish from going into brackish and saltwater areas? True, some livebearers and other fish are euryhaline, as in, can tolerate a wide range of salinity. Many cannot, though, and come from systems with little, if any, NaCl. So why subject them to live in water that their wild counterparts don't even go into? And if the goal is to keep a "little salt for livebearers", wouldn't it make sense to use marine salt mix and not just plain aquarium salt?

Sent from Peabody's rabbit hole.

 

[Caliban07]

Yes I have to say I have never come across anything that suggests salt can combat ammonia, nitrites definitely and it is of course the chloride that is doing that job.

What I can not quite seem to grasp is how salt can ease osmoregulation. If anything, from what understand it can actually make it harder until the salt concentration stabilises and the fish acclimatise to the new water chemistry.

From what I gather, what chemistry is changing subtly all the time and is being regulated all the time on a cellular level. Changes to salt concentrations will force the system to work differently to maintain the best possible balance on a cellular level. These imbalance is what can have an affect. Fish don't like change. They take time to adjust to changes and it's in these moments that they are more susceptible to disease.

I feel even salt dips are a double edged sword.

 

[Delapool]

Slightly off topic but on that I thought this was an amazing paper.

http://m.jeb.biologists.org/content...mitochondria&FIRSTINDEX=20&resourcetype=HWFIG

 

[jlk]

Slightly off topic but on that I thought this was an amazing paper.

J Exp Biology | Mobile

Interesting paper! This is great example of an adaptive response to the environment that allows trout to migrate between different salinity gradients. However, this is a species-specific example although I suspect similar examples exist for certain species that do commonly migrate between various environments.

For most fw fish, they lack any type of significant physiological adaptive means for coping with higher salinity levels. The result is an increased energy demand on the body to try and cope with maintaining an osmotic balance between the environment and the body. This is a major physiological stressor. Long term, this demand results in lack of growth as well as affecting reproductive capacity in addition to the negative effects on the regulatory systems of the body responsible for maintaining osmotic balance. The higher the salinity levels, the more profound the effects both short term and long term. There is nothing beneficial to be gained by keeping stenohaline fish in an unnatural environment with the exception of medical treatment.

 

[Caliban07]

Interesting paper! This is great example of an adaptive response to the environment that allows trout to migrate between different salinity gradients. However, this is a species-specific example although I suspect similar examples exist for certain species that do commonly migrate between various environments.

For most fw fish, they lack any type of significant physiological adaptive means for coping with higher salinity levels. The result is an increased energy demand on the body to try and cope with maintaining an osmotic balance between the environment and the body. This is a major physiological stressor. Long term, this demand results in lack of growth as well as affecting reproductive capacity in addition to the negative effects on the regulatory systems of the body responsible for maintaining osmotic balance. The higher the salinity levels, the more profound the effects both short term and long term. There is nothing beneficial to be gained by keeping stenohaline fish in an unnatural environment with the exception of medical treatment.

+1 as is my understanding

 

[trennamw]

I do use salt in my small betta tank, about a half teaspoon per gallon. I believe it stopped fin rot and when I started using it the betta just seemed really happy and frisky.

I don't use it in my bigger tank, since I don't know it's effect on the snails and loaches and plants, and that tank has seemed more stable (as larger tanks are).

I'm sure part of the issue at hand is TDS (total dissolved solids), which isn't a common topic in home aquariums, and osmotic stress. The salt adds not only salinity but also dissolved solids.

 

[ClassicRocker]

Funny, some say "yes" to salt for disease treatment, while others say "no" to salt..........period. Now, what about using AQ Salt in a planted tank (live plants)? Have read numerous articles that say "no" to that b/c salt will kill live plants.

Another thing I've noticed in "Newbie" Threads asking about treatment of a disease, some will tell the "Newbie" to use salt, but NEVER ask the "Newbie" if their tank has live plants or not or if they do have live plants, not to use salt.

Sometimes I really think there are too many different "use this/do this" that can really confuse a "Newbie".

 

[BBradbury]

Disease Treatment

Funny, some say "yes" to salt for disease treatment, while others say "no" to salt..........period. Now, what about using AQ Salt in a planted tank (live plants)? Have read numerous articles that say "no" to that b/c salt will kill live plants.

Another thing I've noticed in "Newbie" Threads asking about treatment of a disease, some will tell the "Newbie" to use salt, but NEVER ask the "Newbie" if their tank has live plants or not or if they do have live plants, not to use salt.

Sometimes I really think there are too many different "use this/do this" that can really confuse a "Newbie".

Hello Class...

Salt in small doses of roughly a teaspoon to 1 and a half teaspoons in every 5 gallons of new, treated tap water, isn't going to harm plants. I've used this much for the last 10 years with no problem. Granted, I keep plants that require only subdued lighting, just those that are dark green. The lighter green plants may have an issue with it.

I tell water keepers if they have a doubt about using salt, then don't. Ich can be treated effectively with lots of water changes and vacuuming the bottom material.

B

 

[pip walters]

Funny, some say "yes" to salt for disease treatment, while others say "no" to salt..........period. Now, what about using AQ Salt in a planted tank (live plants)? Have read numerous articles that say "no" to that b/c salt will kill live plants.

Another thing I've noticed in "Newbie" Threads asking about treatment of a disease, some will tell the "Newbie" to use salt, but NEVER ask the "Newbie" if their tank has live plants or not or if they do have live plants, not to use salt.

Sometimes I really think there are too many different "use this/do this" that can really confuse a "Newbie".

I agree. That's why my signature used to say 'doesnt anybody read books anymore'.

 

[mattcham]

Old books are obsolete. Most public libraries are carrying fewer books each year. The Boston public library has rooms full of empty bookshelves now.

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[pip walters]

Old books are obsolete. Most public libraries are carrying fewer books each year. The Boston public library has rooms full of empty bookshelves now.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Aquarium Advice mobile app

Try newer books. I am told they hold a wealth of up to date information

 

[trennamw]

The problem with books ... Nothing makes it into a book until it's been proven for quite awhile.

The problem with the internet ... Everything makes it onto somewhere that seems authoritative before it's been proven at all.

 

[Caliban07]

AA wouldn't exist if everyone was obtaining there information from books.

Wouldn't be much of an advice forum either if we told everyone to go look it up.