aquarium salt?

justintoxicated

justintoxicated

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Dec 19, 2005
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Hi, I have a 20 gal freshwater tank..

has

-guppies
-mystery snails (applesnails)
-oto's
-and ADF's
-Bumble Bee gobies.

Substrate is flourite.
And the tank is planted.

I was sold the Gobies as freshwater fish, although I should have done my homework the guys at the LFS are usualy pretty good about giving decent info. Now the gobies have been in there for a few days and look much happier than they were at the petstore. These Bumbleebee gobies have full banded stripes. I do not have a brackish water tank. I read that they do best in brackish water, but can live in fresh also.

Could I add enough aquarium salt to my tank to make them happy without hurting my other fish/snails/frogs?
Thanks in advance.

Oh yea, I have crushed coral in my filter to keep the PH up.
 
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To make real brackish water you would have to use a real marine salt mix such as Instant Ocean. Otherwise you're just making salty water.

The guppies may be ok in brackish. The otos would definitely not. Not sure about the adfs and snails.
 
no no no mystery snails no like salt, bad, bad, bad. every seen a slug with a little salt poured on it?
 
The guppies are the only ones that could tolerate the brackish water, even at low levels.

The ADF's could easily live ina smaller tank by themselves. The otto's I don't know how big of a tank they need to be happy and have a good diet.
 
Ok thnaks for the info, I have about 40 mystery snails untill they are a little larger when I will sell them to the LFS.

I did not want to make the tank brackish because from what I understand most of my plants would die as well. Does anyone actualy use flourite in a brackish tank?

I was just wondering if I could add enough aquarium salt to not affect the other fish but keep the bee gobies happy. At petsmart where I got my mystery snails they told me they add salt to all their tanks including the tank with oto's, snails and ADF's. Not enough to make brackish water though.

Was the lady there smoking something or is it ok for me to add some aquarium salt? Should I?

I guess the BumbleBee Gobies will just have to live with the fresh water then,
I just wont get any more of them like I wanted to.

I do have a 3 gallon eclipse fry tank I could possibly convery later, but i don't know if it is large enough for them and if I'm going to screw around with brackish tank for the first time it should probably be larger right? Would the 3 gallon be suitable for guppy fry and BumbleBee Gobies? I'm guessing no?
 
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Some people add Feshwater Aquarium Salt to their tanks thinking it will prevent disease. There really is no reason to do that for freshwater fish unless you are actually treating something. Water changes will do more to improve their life. Plus that salt doesn't come anywhere close to simulating brackish conditions. You would have to add marine salt mix to do that.

I woudl suggest either seeing if you can try those guys in for a better choice of fish (maybe cory catfish) or else setup another small tank and make it brackish, at which point you could add some guppies as well. But that is another discussion I guess.
 
I would feel pretty bad giving these guy back to the LFS where they will be put in a freshwater tank anyways and more than likely sold as freshwater fish to someone else.

Their tank was overcrowded to the extent that it appeared they were nipping each other fins.

I'll have to see if my 3 gallon would make a good home from them, I might be able to transfer them to it in a few weeks.

I won't add any salt then, hell the salt cost me more than the gobies!
 
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