Salt in Freshwater tank-

[fargodenny]

I have a 38 Gal Freshwater tank. Currently there are 6 Mollies, 2 Platy-wags, 4 guppies, 3 Tetra and one red tail shark. Also in there are 2 snails, a fiddler crab and a Hammers cobalt blue lobster. I was told adding a small amount of salt would help the tank in general, but I don't want to hurt anything in there that wouldn't be able to handle it.. any thoughts?? thanks!

 

[gkuzel]

VM86/VM007: The Use of Salt in Aquaculture
This website might help you out a little bit. In my expirience, Salt never goes over well with red tails.

 

[GodFan]

I would skip the salt and get rid of the fiddler crab-he is brackish and semiterrestial. Salt can cause major problems. I would not add it. Also the lobster will kill your fish when he is of size and finds a slow one.

 

[siva]

Salt should only be used in FW aquariums to treat illness.

If you had only the mollies and fiddlers you could begin converting the tank to brackish by adding marine salt, but the other fish will not tolerate that. The mollies will be fine in FW, but the fiddlers will not. They need brackish water and land access. I'd get rid of them or set up another tank for them ASAP. They won't live long in fresh and are desperate for air so they can dry out.

Red tail sharks need a bare minimum of a 55 gal tank. Your tank just isn't long enough for an adult shark so you really should get that out of there as well.

If you want to keep the lobster in there, that's fine, as long as you don't mind disappearing fish.

 

[Paulcm10]

I currently am using a teaspoon or two in my 20g high tank.
the reason is my nitrites reached 5.0ppm which is very high so i have a guppy in there to continue my fish in cycle. i was told by jetajockey to put salt to help detoxify nitrites. so far i haven't had problems with it. i still see my MTS alive and guppy alive. the only thing is my guppy isn't swimming around like he is supposed to.. so idk but he's been that way since i got him .