Is 1 teaspoon of salt per 5 gallons bad for kuhli loaches?

[Daniel Morrow]

Is 1 teaspoon of salt per 5 gallons any of a bit hurtful for kuhli loaches?
Thanks, I have 5 kuhli loaches in with my bedroom fancy guppy tank and some
other fauna in there as well, any of the salt damaging? Also - any one know
where I could get a test kit that measures those trace amounts of salt so I
can keep the salt level in these tanks stable (I think salt creep is one
issue I am worrying about) so I never over-or-under dose? Thanks and later!

[Elaine T]

Daniel Morrow wrote:
> Is 1 teaspoon of salt per 5 gallons any of a bit hurtful for kuhli loaches?
> Thanks, I have 5 kuhli loaches in with my bedroom fancy guppy tank and some
> other fauna in there as well, any of the salt damaging? Also - any one know
> where I could get a test kit that measures those trace amounts of salt so I
> can keep the salt level in these tanks stable (I think salt creep is one
> issue I am worrying about) so I never over-or-under dose? Thanks and later!

0.02% salt (1 tsp/5 gallons) shouldn't hurt anything in a FW tank. LFS
where I worked routinely kept FW fish in 0.1% salt (1 tsp/gallon). The
only way I know of for measuring small amounts of salt is a
refractometer and I don't know whether it works at the levels you would
be trying to measure. When I kept lightly salted tanks, I used to just
do an occasional water change without the salt. It seemed to work.

--
Elaine T __
http://eethomp.com/fish.html <'__><
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com

[Daniel Morrow]

Bottom posted.
Elaine T wrote:
> Daniel Morrow wrote:
>> Is 1 teaspoon of salt per 5 gallons any of a bit hurtful for kuhli
>> loaches? Thanks, I have 5 kuhli loaches in with my bedroom fancy
>> guppy tank and some other fauna in there as well, any of the salt
>> damaging? Also - any one know where I could get a test kit that
>> measures those trace amounts of salt so I can keep the salt level in
>> these tanks stable (I think salt creep is one issue I am worrying
>> about) so I never over-or-under dose? Thanks and later!
>
> 0.02% salt (1 tsp/5 gallons) shouldn't hurt anything in a FW tank.
> LFS where I worked routinely kept FW fish in 0.1% salt (1
> tsp/gallon). The only way I know of for measuring small amounts of
> salt is a refractometer and I don't know whether it works at the
> levels you would be trying to measure. When I kept lightly salted
> tanks, I used to just do an occasional water change without the salt.
> It seemed to work.

Thanks for the fast response elaine! Cool, every once in a while when I do
my 4 day sponge pre-filter cleaning I will not add more salt just to make
sure salt creep (I think that's what I was worried about) doesn't happen.
It's good to know I am not hurting anything with the addition of salt! Good
luck and later. :-)