tank additives and the aquarium salt controversy with naturals

all those fish species you list can tolerate brackish salinities, but I don't know if they actually require salt all the time.

FW aquarium salt is just rock salt, NaCl. Most people who make brackish mixtures prefer marine aquarium salt, because it contains all the other elements found in seawater (and pretty much in any natural body of water).

as for the addition of another fish, there's always the chance that will cause a mini-cycle. it won't be as bad or as big as your initial cycle, but you should monitor ammonia and nitrite (as well as nitrate as always) to know when to do a water change if necessary. whenever i change ANYTHING in my tank (new fish, change gravel, add salt, treat for illness, etc.) i always monitor everything carefully and am ready to do water changes at a moment's notice.

The only thing I add/will to my the water in my freshwater tanks on a regular basis is prime and the flourish line. Salt is not good to be using on a regular basis, as it shortens the life span of/bothers the fish, if you want I can find you some actual proof of this (by the way, RTR wrote an article on this... http://aquafacts.net/wiki/index.php/All_Salt_Was_Not_Created_Equal).

Your native fish live in pretty much the same water you drink, and THRIVE in this water (why there still there), with no salt added, so there is absolutely no need to add it. The same thing can be said for all fish available in the hobby, as even the ones that seem to "need" salt in the water, actually "need" hard water, salt simulates this but it doesn't do it completely, and as said before, salt iritates/shortens the life span of fish.

I used to add salt to my tank and I've stopped. I've not had one single problem because of it.

I don't think you should bother with salt unless you have a ich problem. I mainly keep guppies and all the little fish stores say they like salt in their water. Well... Common sense says that if its a fresh water fish, then salts not a great idea. I've ran it to treat ich and it worked excellent for that, but after a month of treatment I stopped adding it to the new water.

Oh and then theres the 'mess' ya get with salt in the water. ick! The evaporated water leaves this yucky crusty gunk all over everything, and clean ups a pain. Kills snails too btw.

IMO, unless you need to use salt to treat an illness, don't bother.

I don't think you need to mess with hardness or ph unless your trying to breed them.

water hardness is a consideration if you have inverts (they need calcium and minerals for their shells). if you think you have very soft water then you may also want to test. for example, if you have never seen hard water deposits, don't know what lime is, then you might want to know. i think for a 1-time thing you can even ask the store to do it for you.

while many fish come with hardness recomendations, i have found that most fish will do well in just about any hardness (as long as there are some minerals). they can't live in RO or distilled water because there are no salts or electrolytes or minerals.

another thing with always adding salt, is that you can breed ich and other parasites/diseases that are more and more salt tolerant. thereby ruling out the possibility of using salt to treat future problems.

salt helps reduce osmoregulatory stress (e.g. improve gill function) during times of other stress. this is a TEMPORARY solution that is not necessary all the time. for example, if you're moving your fish, you might want to add a tablespoon of salt to the bucket just to help reduce the chance of their losing salts to the water. when fish get stressed, they have a harder time maintaining the salt/water balance in their bodies. gills are the site of osmoregulation (salt/water exchange) so that's why it's said that salt helps gill function.