Can Morton's Iodized salt be used to treat Ich?

[SodeeMama]

Question:

Then why does medicinal aquarium salt (that is used to treat :sick: ich) say "evaporated sea salt" as the only primary ingredient?

Just posin' the question.

:dance2:

DAAAAVVVVVVVE!

 

[OrionGirl]

Evaporated sea salt processed and sold for cooking loses much of the minerals and elements needed to reconstitute saltwater. What you get with sea salt contains more NaCl than the marine mix does, by volume, and it's also cleaned up a bit--natural sea water has a number of components we don't really want to cook with.

 

[SodeeMama]

Evaporated sea salt processed and sold for cooking loses much of the minerals and elements needed to reconstitute saltwater. What you get with sea salt contains more NaCl than the marine mix does, by volume, and it's also cleaned up a bit--natural sea water has a number of components we don't really want to cook with.

"Aquarium" salt...not the cooking kind....If it says evaporated sea salt on both labels, what's the difference?

****...I mean DARN....capitalists. Oh, if only there were a marine biologist amongst us.

 

[OrionGirl]

Product name? At a guess, same thing--it's not designed to create sea water, it doesn't contain the same mix of ingredients.

 

[OrionGirl]

If you're referring to the Freshwater Aquarium Salt...It's made from evaporated sea water, but that doesn't mean they haven't processed it heavily. Really--think about it's title and see if it makes any sense anyway.

There are marine biologists here.

 

[SodeeMama]

If you're referring to the Freshwater Aquarium Salt...It's made from evaporated sea water, but that doesn't mean they haven't processed it heavily. Really--think about it's title and see if it makes any sense anyway.

There are marine biologists here.

Thank God. :read:

I can only say that I am but a humble novice seeking guidance. So that one day, I too, can become apart of the Aquaria Gastapo Elite :Angel: . Thanks for the info, Orion.

 

[RTR]

There are many reactions during brine evaporation which are not reversible with dilution, meaning some to many of the make-up ions present in sea water normally are no longer present, but have been changed into chemically different materials, with different solubilities and unfortunately the material no long has the ability to support marine life.

 

[daveedka]

Gonna' throw a wrench here...But I've used marine salt with no problems as well.

Muchas Gracias OG. :laugh: :sad:
Aside from the possibility of increasing dissolved solids, and raising PH, I typically avoid reccomending sea salt mixes primarily because it is difficult to get a good calculation on actual NaCl levels. Through all of my research, I have never actually found info on the actual metabolic process by which salt kills ich, so I pretty much stick to the dosages of NaCl reccomended, and documented. with sea salt mixes I would have to do a lot of re-calculating in the case of some of the resilient strains of ich. I would hazard a guess that the mojority of ich strains would succomb to low levels of NaCl and therefore the sea salt mixes would be O.K. if the aforementioned water chemistry issues didn't get in the way.

Then why does medicinal aquarium salt (that is used to treat ich) say "evaporated sea salt" as the only primary ingredient?

Just posin' the question.

I'm going to hazard a couple of gueses, based on what I know of Marketing. Please be fully aware these are guesses and opinions, not researched facts.
#1. The producers and sellers of "Freshwater aquarium salt " do not want the general public to understand that they are selling NaCl at an inflated price, so they give it the appearance of being different since most people don't know the source of their table salt.
#2. Since they don't have to pass inspection as food grade pure, they can cover thier posteriors by listing one ingredient, that can be arbitrarily argued should a liability issue ever come up. Evaporated sea salt could be anything. Who knows what , with no garantee's. Most likely it is reasonably pure NaCl, but the producers can legally play dumb about the actual chemical make-up and impurity levels.


additional random thoughts. Firstly, some of the food salt sold at the grocery store is evaporated sea salt, most salt comes from mines, the primary reason that mining is used is that the salt is far closer to pure, and the process is much quicker (digging versus evaportation) Either way, food grade salt has to pass an inspection process, and it is still sold much much cheaper than freshwater aquarium salt which IMO is less desireable simply because we don't know for sure what is in it. This doesn't mean it's unsafe, but just not as safe as the food grade stuff. for treatment of problems such as ich, the NaCl is what we want. NaCl is just that whether or not it comes from the ocean, Salt Lake city Utah, or the lake Erie Salt mines (cool place BTW).
So if we know what we wish to add, and we can buy it at the local grocery store for 30 cents per pound, there really is no reason to pay more at the LFS.

NEVER use anything else, Brackish/ saltwater salts Is not good for most f/w fishses.....

I'm kind of going out on a limb, but I imagine the folks that discussed this were talking long term use. NaCl is not good for freshwater fishes either in anything but the minute quantities found in nature. One of the biggest ironies in the world of salt myths is the fact that the same folks who claim Mollies are brackish fish and need salt will usually also tell you to never use sea salt mixes, but stick to freshwater aquarium Salt. The two stories don't jive at all. I typically wouldn't reccomend using saltwater or brackish water mixes based on the previously mentioned resons, but In the right tank with specific needs it wouldn't scare me at all if that was what I had to use.
dave

 

[tuvok]

Thanks for that last post daveedka. Those are some interesting observations on a topic that I nevery really gave that much thought to before.

 

[SodeeMama]

Thank youuuu, Daveeed.

You are the fountain of knowledge in this otherwise bleek yet wide aquarium world of...well,

fish.

SM