salt

BV,

You need to read some of the URLs, the ones based on real research, that are
always posted here and other places by the salt advocates and you will find
that those results are based on Aquaculture models, not backyard ponds.

Now, you may ask, "what's the difference?" Rod Farlee used one
consistently, for dosing the water with the right amount of salt to obtain a
desired PPM of salt. If you read the entire URL you will see that the
reason the material was presented by the originators is to give fish farmers
the proper proportions of salt in water when hauling their fish to market,
whether it be a food fish or feeders for the aquarium hobby. Besides the
salt it also relates the amounts of compressed oxygen that is used to aerate
these tanks. Now, the reason for the salt is to increase the slime on the
fish and this occurs because the salt is an irritant to the fish. Now the
reason for the oxygen is because they are carrying about 2 pounds of fish
per gallon of water and this gives the crapped fish plenty of oxygen to
travel in their tight quarters and the salt irritates them enough to have
them increase their slime coat in order to have a tighter layer of slime for
the bad bugs to burrow into so the fish have a better chance of fending off
the bad bugs.

The reason that salt is used in recirc aquaculture facilities is because
they are raising fish at a stocking level of 1/2 pound of fish or more per
gallon of water. A lot higher than what you are carrying in your pond.
Salt serves the same reasons as the tank model mentioned above.

Some thing else that is interesting is that all the models for using salt in
ponds for nitrites is for the early spring in "Catfish" ponds where they are
bred and raised. And by the way, for the salt to be effective in assisting
in preventing the uptake of nitrite by the gills of the fish the salt levels
must be 110% of the nitrite levels. If salt is not added appropriately as
the nitrite levels increase the salt becomes useless. So just keeping a
particular level of salt in your pond, especially if it is really low like
..01ppm as touted by some, this level would quickly be overcome by a quick
rise of nitrites to even .05ppm and the salt would not do any good. For the
salt/nitrite situation to work you have to monitor your water at least ever
hour if not every half hour to make sure there is enough salt to be
effective.

Of course, I have posted this information over and over again. By the by,
last year I also mentioned that there is also scientific proof that salt in
the water lowers the dissolved oxygen in the water in addition to the losses
due to the increase in water temperature. So as summer gets hotter and
hotter and our pond temperatures go up this is something to consider.

HTH

Tom L.L.
"BenignVanilla" m wrote in
message ...
"Gregory Young" wrote in message
. ..
Thanks for the reply Tom.
I haven't seen others posting to this topic, so I assume most want to
keep
the heck out of this discussion, and quite frankly I can certainly
understand why, it's been beat to death!
I stopped replying, trying to go private email instead, but my offer to
do
so was not accepted.
After the second public posting about good diagnosticians being able to
just
look at a pond and figure out the problem (I let the first go), I felt I
had
better reply, for fear some might actually believe that was possible.
Have to run.. will catch you later,
Happy ponding,
Greg
snip

From a silent one...I have kept out of the discussion mostly because the
reading is better then the writing for me! I am somewhere on the fence
about this topic. I think you both raise some good points, but for me two
points are the most important. 1) I am against standardizing a medication
process. I don't take a pill unless I need it, and I don't think I want to
do that to my fish, so no salt just yet. 2) Unless I missed it, which is
possible, neither poster can provide a scientific study that says, "here
duh
facts". I think this topic is somewhat ambiguous as we do not have a clear
data set to work from, but I must admit, I lean towards Greg's school.
There
is just something 'fishy' about salting my fish. I dunno. My jury is still
out.

BV.