Salt- how much is enough

Paul & Angela Williams wrote:
Hi. I have a 120 litre tank with 1 green severum 1 female betta, 2 bronze
corys, 1 bristlenose.
Things were going well until I purchased the severum. I was floating it in
it's bag in the tank when I realised that things weren't right in there.
Both bettas looked sick (scales seem to be dropping off, 1 has since died) 1
of the cories looked like it had a fungus infection. In a panic I checked
the water specs. ammonia. nil, nil nitrates, But PH was low.
also GH was a bit on hard side but KH was really low.

Anyways as I had no other Tank for the severum he had to go in. Added some
KH raise and corrected ph. I added a broad spectrum type med.
I have heard that salt can be beneficial. As I have never added salt to my
tank before I was just going to follow the instructions that came with the
"sea salt for freshwater". The rate given was 1 gram per litre... which when
weighed out seems a tremendous amount of it.
1. does this sound right ?
2. Will the broad spectrum med treat the ailments mentioned above, or
should I be getting something more specific ?
3. is there a readily available test for salinity in freshwater aquariums ?

thanks in advance.


1) 1 gram/litre is 1 ppt or 0.1%. That's a very standard amount of
salt for treating FW fish. Add it slowly, divided into three doses
spaced 12 hours apart. Dissolve it before adding to the aquarium.
Don't keep your cories and Ancistrus spp. in that much salt for more
than a few weeks.

2) It's hard to know what the broad spectrum medication you used will
even treat since you haven't told us the medication or its ingredients.
You also haven't mentioned how low the pH fell or what the KH reading
was. You also don't mention testing nitrites. It's common for
biofiltration to be damaged at low enough pH. Do you have any idea why
you had a strong KH/pH crash in the first place? Is your tank planted
and brightly lit? Meds and salt are helpful, but you must correct the
underlying problem before your fish will be well.

3) You can buy a refractometer to test salinity, but I wouldn't sweat
it. Just measure how much water you siphon out for water changes and
add the appropriate amount of salt back. Use only freshwater for
evaporative top-off. This is accurate enough for short-term (a couple
of months') treatment.

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

Thanks Elaine.

Sorry I didn't give a complete picture so here goes.

Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
GH 140 ml/l
KH 60 ml/l (was 30 ml/l)
current PH 7.3 was about 6.6. I am trying to lower to around 7 but as I add
kh up, up goes the ph as well. ( I am making these changes over a number of
days.)

Aquarium is planted but possibly not as much as it could be....The name of
the plants escape me but does include a broad leaf plant growing out of
wood.. (heard the wood was good for bristlenose). The light is only a
single 2 ft long one. Which I probably should upgrade.

Never had algae probs.
Tank has been operating around 6 months and has always had low KH.
In the beggining I was having trouble with too high a PH. (as this is how
the water comes from my area)

I am wondereing if this shift to acidity is just the natural cycling of this
tank as bacteria in the canister filter grow.
But has got out of hand because of the poor buffering due to low kh.

the med has 4.0mg/ml methylene blue, 2.0mg/ml acriflavine and 0.4 mg/ml
malachite green.

thanks again

Paul & Angela Williams wrote:
Thanks Elaine.

Sorry I didn't give a complete picture so here goes.

Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
GH 140 ml/l
KH 60 ml/l (was 30 ml/l)
current PH 7.3 was about 6.6. I am trying to lower to around 7 but as I add
kh up, up goes the ph as well. ( I am making these changes over a number of
days.)

Aquarium is planted but possibly not as much as it could be....The name of
the plants escape me but does include a broad leaf plant growing out of
wood.. (heard the wood was good for bristlenose). The light is only a
single 2 ft long one. Which I probably should upgrade.

Never had algae probs.
Tank has been operating around 6 months and has always had low KH.
In the beggining I was having trouble with too high a PH. (as this is how
the water comes from my area)

I am wondereing if this shift to acidity is just the natural cycling of this
tank as bacteria in the canister filter grow.
But has got out of hand because of the poor buffering due to low kh.

the med has 4.0mg/ml methylene blue, 2.0mg/ml acriflavine and 0.4 mg/ml
malachite green.

thanks again


Get the methylene blue out of your water! Change water and/or use
carbon. It will kill your plants and filter bacteria if it hasn't
already. Methylene blue is only suitable for quick dips and quarantine
tanks.

You need to worry less about the actual pH, and more about it
fluctuating. Choose an amount of baking soda that will take your KH to
4 or 5 degrees and keep the KH stable. Stable pH values anywhere from
6.5 to 8.0 are fine for most tropicals. Plants without CO2 will tend to
drop your KH, so you may want to test periodically.

As for meds, water changes, stable KH and pH and salt should help.
You've had malachite and acriflavine around, which should have the
fungus under control and bacterial load down. I'm not sure adding
another med would be helpful at this time.

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