Platys, and salt in community tank

[benee16]

I have a 10 gallon tank with 6 leopard danios, 2 rasbauti corys  and 2 platys. Is it necessary to add salt to the water for the platys? and if I do, will the other fish be okay with it? I've lost 2 platys in the past 3 weeks, probably due to ph instability, but maybe due to lack of salt in water?

Also one platy is going to have babies any day now. Will all the fish I have eat the young, or is there a slim chance that some may survive? I didn't separate the female because I didn't want to stress her from her move from the pet store. I did put a lot of plastic bushes and hiding spaces in the tank though.  

 

[tlfphoto]

Most fish love salt. As long as you're just using aquarium salt and not sea salt your fish will most likely love it. Use about 1tsp of aquarium salt per 5gal of water. I have 5 tanks and use salt in all of them. Platy's due prefer a high PH, so test you water and if your PH is not at least 7.0 I would raise it or find the platy's a new home where you can give the platy's the high PH they need. The salt will also help keep your tank cleaner.
If you want to keep your babies you might want to get a small tank to keep them in. I have 8 fry (babies) 6 swordtails & 2 mollies in a 5 1/2gal by themselves. My last batch of mollie fry I was able to save 9 and 6 lived. Watch out though, Livebearers are baby making machines.
Hope this helps
Tommy

 

[benee16]

Thanks for the info. My ph is naturally 6.8 and I keep it at 7.  So far so good. The platys seem happy.

 

[Avalon]

Not all fish "love" salt.
Salt does not keep your aquarium cleaner. This is absurd.
Platy's can handle a wide pH range (6.5-8.0+), as long as it's stable. It does not seem to affect their breeding any.

 

[tlfphoto]

Avalon:
Maybe you should do a little research on Aquarium Salt!!

 

[wayne]

Agreed - but tlfphoto should also do some research on salt, as not all fish like salt at all. Platys are ok with it for example, but the cories will probably hate it. Generally hardwater fish are ok, while softwater fish (teras, cories, most catfish really, rasboras, many south american cichlids) aren't designed to deal with it, and it will harm their health.
Also some people like to put salt in to simulate hardness for african lake cichlids, but's it's now believed to be a cause of the diesease 'malawi bloat'

 

[tlfphoto]

SALT is a GOOD THING

Below is an article I think some of you experts should read. Do a little searching on the net to find many more.


Rock salt -The Magic Solution
The use of 1 teaspoon of regular rock salt per gallon of aquarium water will do wonders for your fish. It's a sort of magic elixer for sluggish fish, it will cure or prevent most fish ailments, and I believe it helps the fish grow faster, and "live long and prosper". If your fish is really sick then I suggest adding another teaspoon of salt to make it 2 teaspoons per gallon. Salt works its magic in 3 ways, 1. parasites and other undesirables in the aquarium are adversely affected by salt, so it is a treatment and preventative for parasites. 2. Wounds heal faster with salt in the water (ever notice how sores heal faster after you swin in the ocean?) and 3. Fish being in water all day have a stressful time trying to keep the right amount of liquid in their body, salt helps the fish in this battle (liken this to the wrinkles you get after a long bath)
Suppose you have an 10 gallon aquarium and you put 5 gallons of fresh-water into it, now if you add 5 gallons of marine (ocean) water you wouldn't have 5 gallons of salt water and 5 gallons of fresh-water. You would have 10 gallons of brackish water. What happens is that the fresh and saltly water mixes. Alright, suppose you had bag of fresh-water that was semi-porus, and you put it into an aquarium full of saltwater. If you left the bag in there overnight and took the bag out and tasted the water you would find that it turned into salty water, how salty would depend on how porus the bag was. But the point is that a fishes skin is a porus membrane. So if a fish is swimming around in a completly saltless aquarium, and the fishes somewhat salty blood and body fluids are contained in a porus membrane (fish skin) then the fish has to fight to maintain the proper chemistry within it's own body. Naturally increasing the salt content of the water toward the same level that is within the fishes body will relieve some of the pressure involved in this process, and make life easier for the fish. This same principal holds true in reverse for saltwater fish. So the conclusion is that a teaspoon of salt per gallon will help a freshwater fish, and a less than normal salt concentration will help a saltwater fish.

When using rock salt you don't have to worry about it being "iodized" or not, theres not enough iodine to really make any difference, and iodine is a trace element found in most natural water anyway.

There are no freshwater fish that are harmed in any way by the addition of 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon. I have never experienced any problem with plants and low salt concentrations, I would quess that 90% of all aquarium plants are not affected by 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon, nor are snails, shrimp, African frogs, Daphnia , nor any and all fish including Catfish, not even Corydoras.

How much (how little) is 1 level teaspoon per gallon?
1 teaspoon = .13% of a gallon
2 teaspoons = .26% of a gallon
3 teaspoons = .39% of a gallon - also = 1 tablespoon
4 teaspoons = .52% of a gallon
8 teaspoons = 1.04% of a gallon
So it takes 24 teaspoons of salt per gallon to make a 3% medicinal saltwater dip solution.
Or to make it easier to understand, it takes approximately 770 teaspoons to equal a gallon

The usual arguments against salt are that "My fish do fine without any salt in the water" , to which I would say, good! but they will do better with salt in the water. I do fine without seatbelts too, unless I need them.

The use of salt and/or a copper based fish medicine such as "Had-A-Snail" or "Aquaisol" will cure or prevent just about all treatable fish diseases.



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© Clint Norwood, petfish.net

Again let me tell you I put 1tsp per gal in all my tanks.
All my fish are thriving and happy. Here are the types of fish I salt:
Tetras, Danio, Rainbows, Pleco, Upsidedown cats, Glassfish, Redfin shark, Clown loaches, Kuhli loaches, betta, barbs, & all my livebearers(mollies, swords, & platy's.

 

[colesea]

Okay, anybody who has to use Star Trek analagies to make a point definately does not know what the heck they are talking about. I'm sorry but as an "expert" I strong disagree with salt being "the magic elixier" to fish tanks.

And as a promising vet tech and marine biology graduate, I will say that freshwater does have salt in it naturally. The article is right that all fish do require trace elements in their water just as much as all athletes and people who work hard physical labor require Gatorade to help re-establish their eletrolyte balance and prevent dehydration. All trace elements and minerals are most often salts. Not all salts are NaCl. Aquarium salts are formulated with the right balance of elements to mimic natural mineral concentrations in fresh water while sea salts do the same for marine tanks. Using regular table or rock salt increases your NaCl concentration with out a proportionate rise in the other minerals. This is not a good thing! Adding too much NaCl to a freshwater fishtank will dehydrate your fish even though they are living in a watery environment because it is removing water from their body faster than they can replace it. This is the reason for wrinkles you get from sitting in the bath. While I can't speak about the iodine issue, I do know that an over-abundance of iodine can wreak havoc with the thyroid gland and cause metabolic problems. It is a necessary trace element, but I would not use iodinized salt in my aquariums because I would not know to what degree the iodine is accumulating in my tanks.

For mammals, the physiological content of their body fluids is 0.9% saline. When adding fluids to the body you must make sure the saline content matches or you can end up doing damage to the tissues. Same with fish, they do have a physiological saline balance to their body fluids that their environment must match, which the article did do a very bad job in trying to explain. This is different from species to species. As any discus owner will attest to, adding salts to their discus aquariums at the recommened amount described above will probably send their fish to heck in a hand basket awfully quick. The only reason discus owners should add aquarium or discus formulated salts to their aquariums is if they are using an RO water source. Some species, like goldfish or African Cichlids, do like harder water, but not necessarily NaCl saltier water, although NaCl can increase water hardness. Again, the dehydration issue comes up, or osmotic imbalances such as occure with dropsy or Malawi bloat. Sea salt mixes are high in NaCl concentrations and are often mis-used in freshwater tanks.

The prinicle of medicial salt is pretty sound. Most bacteria/fungal infections that attack animals are acclimaed to fresh water environments. This is why we humans gargle with salt water to get rid of a soar throat, or why wounds heal in the ocean. Water rushes out of the bacteria/fungal "body" into the environment and crenates the cell, killing it. Salt is not recommended as a medication for scaleless fish because it may be more irritating to these fish than the innitial infection. While I have used copper before, I know what I'm doing with it. Most people don't. Inexperienced aquarist should stay away from the stuff. Any chemical used as a gastropodacide should be avoid in fish tanks as if they don't kill the fish, the resulting amount of dead snail bodies rotting in their tank will. Salt (or fresh) water dipping must be done with great care as to prevent osmotic shock and bloat.

I sit here with the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Doc Wellfish's aquarium salt carton on my desk and no where does it say it is a "magic elixier." In fact it comes with several warnings about osmotic shock. It does promote improved gill function and reduced stress when added. As a general tonic is says "one rounded tablespoonful for each 5 gallons of aquarium water". Most tap water will already have enough mineral content in it not to require additional aquarium salt. I use it for my goldfish, not my freshwater tropials (danio, tetras, clow plecos, convic cichlids, barbs, rainbow shark, betta).

This is why it is important to research each =idividual= species of fish and what their water chemistry requirements are, as well as to test your tap water, thus matching fish to tap water conditions and not try to change water chemistry conditions to match fish.
~~Colesea

 

[tlfphoto]

SALT

Again I stand firmly behind salt in TROPICAL freshwater tanks. Unlike some "experts" I do not know everything and I do not have a degree in marine biology, nor am I promising Vet tech. Let me tell you though, what education I do have so you don't think I am stupid. My first degree is in Photographic Technology. Which means I have studied alot more about chemistry than I ever thought I would. I Handle chemicals that can be FATAL on contact with skin or if you inhale some types, the same thing DEAD. For those of you that don't know Photography is a science degree. My second degree is in Computer Network Services. Which means I know computers like the back of my hand. So I'll leave it at that for my education except how this all ties in to fish.
I research everything I put in my tanks, because simply, I want my fish to be happy!
I will spare you any more of my words and post another article on Salt.

Salt in a Freshwater Tank?
Why would an aquarist put salt in a freshwater aquarium? Aquarium salt has been used for decades as a sort of "tonic" for freshwater fish. While it's hard to put a finger on just why salt is beneficial, many aquarists have noticed that certain fish simply do better with a small amount of aquarium salt added to their tanks.

What are the advantages of using aquarium salt? First, some tap water sources are very low in dissolved salts compared to certain fish-collecting or fish-raising areas, and the addition of aquarium salt might simply make the fish feel more "at home". Second, salt provides replacement sodium and chloride ions that stressed or sick fish need. Third, salt may inhibit the fishes' uptake of toxic chemicals like nitrite. Finally, salt inhibits parasites (for example, Chilodonella cyprini) that are sometimes difficult to diagnose or treat.

Do all fish appear to benefit from adding salt? Certain fish, like livebearers and of course brackish water specimens (those that inhabit waters with significant salt levels) like monos, scats, puffers and fiddler crabs seem to have far better survival rates and fewer disease problems when kept with salt. Many others, like most barbs and tetras, seem more indifferent. A few, notably Corydoras catfish, are said to have very low tolerance for salt, although our experience has been that they do quite well at the salt levels we use.

How much salt should be added - and what type - and how often? A tablespoon for every five gallons of water works well for us. Use either "Aquarium Salt" from the aquarium shop or Kosher or canning salt from the grocery store; the idea is to get just salt, with no additives like iodine or potassium. Salt should be added with the initial setup and only replaced thereafter with water changes (e.g., if you change 10 gallons of water in a 30 gallon tank, add 2 tablespoons of salt).

Does Aquatics Unlimited use salt in it's display tanks? We've used a tablespoon per five gallons in virtually all our freshwater tanks for over 25 years with no apparent problems, and have noticed benefits, particularly in dealing with swordtails, mollies and other livebearers . We've recently discontinued its use on angelfish and discus, to see if it has any effect on their acclimation (so far it seems to have made little difference either way).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 1996 Aquatics Unlimited
All rights reserved.

This article can be found at
http://www.bestfish.com/fwsalt.html

 

[RedTurquoise]

O wow! Look at all this info!

I like to use salt in same cases. Not all the time and on most fishes. When I get new discus, I use salt after every water change.

I came across a great article about salt too and get this, its from the U of Florida!

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/VM007

 

[wayne]

SALT IS NOT ALWAYS GOOD

 

[wayne]

Oops , please ignore last

SALT IS NOT ALWAYS GOOD.

tlfphoto - I didn't like the article as it's long on opinion and low on fact.
I agree salt is going to be effective against some bacteria, fungus etc. as they have rubbish osmoregulatory systems, and salt waters uncontrollbly dehydrates them. In return freshawater dips or low salinity quarantine are popular for marine fish (esp. for treating 'Ich') as the offending bugs here absorb lots of water uncontrollably and explode!
But I don't agree that all fish 'benefit' ftom being kept in a slightly saline solution, although the effects may not be so immediately obvious. As a kind of example cardinal tetras kept in hard water get CaCO3 kidney blockages and spawns can't hatch as the eggs over harden - are you sure salinity doesn't produce some equal non-obvious problems.
Not all fish are good with dissolved 'stuff'. Look at a meds treatment bottle - it'll probably tell you to half the dose if you're keeping catfish or loaches as these scaleless fish are particularly susceptible to dissolved chemicals.
Look at salt being linked to malawi bloat - yes salt can be used to raise pH and 'hardness, ' in terms of dissolved salts and conductivity. But there's only trace NaCl in the rift lakes, it's mostly CaCO3 and MgCO3, so they're internal systems are being starved of this and being 'punished' with NaCl at the same time - maybe the bloats not just osmoregulatory, but it isn't going to help them fight of the bacteria that may cause this.
I guess we just disagree here. I too am science based, with a base degree in geology (some special study of unusual magmas from the African rift) but I like to think I have a basic knowledge of geochemistryand water chemistry.

 

[qc]

I think we should make every person who sits there saying it should be in the tank at all times stand in a HUGE pool of salt and then make them drink it too (Just like the fishies too)

I don't wanna do this to make a point but more to make them vomite like crazy hahahahahahaha

salt can be good it can be bad too.. but if it works for you.. go for it.. if it doesn't don't.. but don't sit there saying you MUST use it or that you Must not use it or try to be othoritive on it if you believe salt to help and someone wants to know if it will then tell them to give it a try.. and stop getting all uppy with each other.

 

[Avalon]

Re: SALT is a GOOD THING

Originally posted by tlfphoto
Below is an article I think some of you experts should read. Do a little searching on the net to find many more.


Rock salt -The Magic Solution
The use of 1 teaspoon of regular rock salt per gallon of aquarium water will do wonders for your fish.

Prove this please.

It's a sort of magic elixer for sluggish fish, it will cure or prevent most fish ailments, and I believe it helps the fish grow faster, and "live long and prosper".

You "believe?" Do you believe in the salt fairy too?

If your fish is really sick then I suggest adding another teaspoon of salt to make it 2 teaspoons per gallon. Salt works its magic in 3 ways, 1. parasites and other undesirables in the aquarium are adversely affected by salt, so it is a treatment and preventative for parasites.

No, they aren't. This is a myth. There is a common misunderstanding among aquarists that salt is a good disinfectant, antibacterial, antifungal and/or antiprotozoal drug. At the concentrations commonly used in aquariums it is none of these things. As a reliable disease treatment and/or preventative, salt is essentially useless.

2. Wounds heal faster with salt in the water (ever notice how sores heal faster after you swin in the ocean?) and 3. Fish being in water all day have a stressful time trying to keep the right amount of liquid in their body, salt helps the fish in this battle (liken this to the wrinkles you get after a long bath)
Suppose you have an 10 gallon aquarium and you put 5 gallons of fresh-water into it, now if you add 5 gallons of marine (ocean) water you wouldn't have 5 gallons of salt water and 5 gallons of fresh-water. You would have 10 gallons of brackish water. What happens is that the fresh and saltly water mixes. Alright, suppose you had bag of fresh-water that was semi-porus, and you put it into an aquarium full of saltwater. If you left the bag in there overnight and took the bag out and tasted the water you would find that it turned into salty water, how salty would depend on how porus the bag was. But the point is that a fishes skin is a porus membrane.

The gills work better. This only applies to scaleless fishes.

So if a fish is swimming around in a completly saltless aquarium, and the fishes somewhat salty blood and body fluids are contained in a porus membrane (fish skin) then the fish has to fight to maintain the proper chemistry within it's own body. Naturally increasing the salt content of the water toward the same level that is within the fishes body will relieve some of the pressure involved in this process, and make life easier for the fish. This same principal holds true in reverse for saltwater fish. So the conclusion is that a teaspoon of salt per gallon will help a freshwater fish, and a less than normal salt concentration will help a saltwater fish.

When using rock salt you don't have to worry about it being "iodized" or not, theres not enough iodine to really make any difference, and iodine is a trace element found in most natural water anyway.

There are no freshwater fish that are harmed in any way by the addition of 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon. I have never experienced any problem with plants and low salt concentrations, I would quess that 90% of all aquarium plants are not affected by 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon, nor are snails, shrimp, African frogs, Daphnia , nor any and all fish including Catfish, not even Corydoras.

This is contradictory with the "porous bag" example. What happens when you add too much salt? Are you sure it doesn't effect them?

How much (how little) is 1 level teaspoon per gallon?
1 teaspoon = .13% of a gallon
2 teaspoons = .26% of a gallon
3 teaspoons = .39% of a gallon - also = 1 tablespoon
4 teaspoons = .52% of a gallon
8 teaspoons = 1.04% of a gallon
So it takes 24 teaspoons of salt per gallon to make a 3% medicinal saltwater dip solution.
Or to make it easier to understand, it takes approximately 770 teaspoons to equal a gallon

I have serious issues with these figures. In his book, Fish Medicine (W.B. Saunders Company, 1992), Michael Stoskopf lists salt at a concentration of 22 mg/L (= 83.27 mg/gallon), as a dip, for 30 minutes to control fungal infections and protozoal infestations (specifically Epistylis sp.). This treatment level is equivalent to 1 teaspoon per 66 gallons of water! If you use tap water, the necessary amount of salt should already be present.

The usual arguments against salt are that "My fish do fine without any salt in the water" , to which I would say, good! but they will do better with salt in the water. I do fine without seatbelts too, unless I need them.

Uh-huh. My fish are pretty damn happy right now without any extra addition of salt (they told me so...). I'll pass.

The use of salt and/or a copper based fish medicine such as "Had-A-Snail" or "Aquaisol" will cure or prevent just about all treatable fish diseases.

Copper is poisonous to fish, especially freshwater fish.


Again let me tell you I put 1tsp per gal in all my tanks.
All my fish are thriving and happy. Here are the types of fish I salt:
Tetras, Danio, Rainbows, Pleco, Upsidedown cats, Glassfish, Redfin shark, Clown loaches, Kuhli loaches, betta, barbs, & all my livebearers(mollies, swords, & platy's.

To each his own.

I've said it a million times before, and I'll say it again. This "you gotta have salt" mentality gives aquarists with a false sense of security. "Just add salt and everything will be fine!" Nothing is further from the truth. Salt is no substitute for properly maintaining an aquarium. Fresh water changes, stable temps and water parameters, and the minimizing of stress on fish is the best medicine you can provide. SALT DOES NOT REDUCE FISH STRESS IN ALL CASES. If there is no stress to begin with, why do you want to try and reduce it? It has nowhere to go but up... If you can minimize stress, I assure you that your fish will suffer from diseases much, much less.

Instead of researching salt, you should research how you can provide the best enviornment for your fish. Prevention, not treatment.

 

[colesea]

Red, Thanks for the article, that was quite interested. Given the credentials of the author and the intelligence with which he wrote, I would base my better informed opinions on that instead of the article posted by tlfphoto, IMO.

I'd also like to point out, as Avalon did, that "prevention, not treatment" is the better way to look at the aquarium hobby. Nitrite/nitrate poisoning and methahemeglobin formation can easily be prevented by doing regular water changes. Regular water changes, proper bacterial cycling, and proper filteration, will prevent the build up of nitrite in the tank, thus giving a person healthy fish. The information given by the author of the article is speaking on the large pond wholesale catfish industry where it may be cost-preventative and too water wasteful to do frequent water changes on a whole vat/pond. Home aquarist have no excuse to miss their water changes, IMO! The addition of salt will certainly not get you out of doing water changes.

~~Colesea