Salt

[andy]

I have a 40 gallon "fun" tank which has some guppies, swords and platies in. I just let them get on with it and breed and then give the spare babies away.

I add a small amount of salt to the tank to combat bacterial infections, common in newly added guppies but i'd also like to add a few plants....particularly cuttings from my main planted tank.

Will they be ok with salt ? I have some vallis and it's going potty but i would like to add some limnophyllia aromatica, ludwigia pulustris and maybe some rotala indica and Heteranthera zosterifolia ?

Any suggestions ?....it's not a particularly strong salt mix but i haven't got a hydrometer so can't tell you how much has gone in (fish are well happy though !!!)

Andy

 

[ceg4048]

Hi,
Sodium (Na) is not good for plants in general although different plants have different tolerances. A tank with healthy well fed plants dosed with potassium salts does a better job of keeping fish healthy.

Cheers,

 

[andy]

Hi,
Sodium (Na) is not good for plants in general although different plants have different tolerances. A tank with healthy well fed plants dosed with potassium salts does a better job of keeping fish healthy.

Cheers,

Thanks for that but i'm doing some general purpose aquarium salt....and the above means absolutely nothing to me

 

[ceg4048]

Andy,
So-called "general purpose aquarium salt" is exactly the same salt as you have sitting in your cupboard or on your table in the "general purpose salt shaker". The salt in your cupboard has the chemical name of Sodium Chloride and is written in symbolic form as NaCl. If you are buying "general purpose aquarium salt" then you are spending 5X more money for salt than you need to. Check your cupboard. This is another classic syndrome of The Matrix, where the truth is concealed and BS is substituted as truth.

Salt is a generic term for the products generated by mixing any acid with any base. It just so happens that if you mix muratic acid (HCl) with typical drain cleaners like lye (NaOH) the result is table salt (NaCl) + water. But there are thousands of different salts. The nutrient products that we dose, like Potassium Phosphate (KH2PO4) is a salt that can be made by mixing Potassium Hydroxide (KOH) with Phosphoric acid (H3PO4).

Acids, bases and salts are also referred to as electrolytes. Thats because when dissolved in water, they make the water more electrically conductive. Those sports products such as Gatorade and Lucazade are essentially water plus a variety salts such as KH2PO4.

So when you dissolve table salt (NaCl) in your tank water you release Sodium ions (Na+) and Chloride ions (Cl-) in the water column. Sodium has a deleterious effect in plants because it interferes with the movement of other elements that the plant uses such as potassium (K+) which affects cell internal pressures. Sodium has a similar effect on us and is a contributory factor in hypertension.

Hope this helps. :idea:

Cheers,