On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 23:10:07 -0400, "NetMax"
wrote:

"Dick" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 24 May 2004 22:22:01 +0200, "McEve" wrote:

When I was young - about a hundred years ago - I worked in a pet shop.
At
that time we always used salt in the water for the Mollies, as they
were
said to benfit from it, in fact wouldn't thrive without! Now I see the
LFS
put salt in the tanks of all live bearers. Is this really necessary? I
have
2 platys that are in great shape, and thrive in my fish soup of a
tank, and
I never put salt in that tank.

Reason I'm asking is that I'd like more Platys, but are reluctant to
buy
speciments that have gotten used to quite large quantites of salt in
the
water in the shop. I happened to be there while they put the weekly
dosage
in the tanks of the live bearers, and we're talking about a litre of
salt
in 60 liters of water! Has it slowly developed to a fact that all live
bearers need salt, and not just the Mollies as time has passed, or
didn't we
know any better back then?

Do I need to be concerned about their ability to adjust to life
without
salt? And is it really necessary to put all that salt in the water for
live
bearers other than Mollies?


I think you are being too careful. The fish the store sells are not
likely to go to homes that add salt. The store would have gone out of
business if large number of fish had trouble. So, I would conclude
that the fish are able to make the adjustment.

Your conclusion is incorrect. The business model for some of the chain
operations does not require *any* profits from the live fish dept. The
profits are from people buying pet food & paraphenalia. The fish are
loss leaders. This is why the mom& pops went under. As remarkable (and
cynical) as it may sound, they would have no problem with all their
Platys dying, provided they lived a few weeks and they sold a few. You
don't have to believe me, but I'm in the trade (fortunately not in one of
those chains) and there have also been posters who have worked with and
seen this going on.

On this topic, I verified today with one of my importers (who travels to
the far-east), that off-shore breeders are keeping all their livebearers
in 4 to 5 grams of salt per litre of water. I think that is 19 grams per
US gallon (or 3.8 US teaspoons /g). Whether your LFS knows it or not,
this is probably what their livebearers were born and raised in.

I buy all my fish over the internet. Why would internet suppliers be
different? I have never had problems with mollies, platties or
swordtails so I assume they are not using salt.