adding salt as a cure

NY Detailer

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Mar 2, 2004
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when i am adding salt to treat ich how many times a week should i be adding the salt and how much salt each time
 
The salt sticks around so you only need to add salt if you change water. Add just enough to match what you had before.

BTW, I've never seen any evidence that salt helps, but I try it, too. :) About a half teaspoon per gallon. Mix it real well in your 80-degree water as it doesn't want to dissolve at those concentrations. I mix it with tank water in a cup, pouring off the top & replacing with tank water till all the salt crystals dissolve.

Good luck! What else are you using?
 
Your pleco won't take well with the salt. Any type of catfish or other type of fish with very small or no scales cannot tolerate salt.

This isn't from my own experience, but I've read it here about a thousand times.

Maybe try "Quick Cure"? It was reccomended to me by a friend but I don't know anything else about it. I've seen it in the local LFS.
 
I use 1 teaspoon per gallon of water, pre-dissolved in tank water and added slowly to the tank. Raise the temperature to the mid-80s if your heater will hold that. Maintain the temp. and salt for at least 10 days after the last visible symptom. Watch respiration rates - Ich affects gills and the water hold less O2 anyway at higher temp, so if the fish are gasping, increase aeration.

I have used the same tecnique for loaches, tetras, whatever including tanks with catfish without ever, repeat ever, losing a fish or having Ich recur.

Catfish and loaches should not be maintained in water with salt chronically. For an acute period of disease treatment, it does no harm at the specified dose. All the rest of dire warnings are myth.

If you add the salt dry and the catfish is sitting in it, that is not the way to do it. If you over or underdose, that is not right either (you can go higher without scaleless fish, 1 1/2 teaspoons per gal, but should not need to do so).
 
Originally posted by RTR
I use 1 teaspoon per gallon of water, pre-dissolved in tank water and added slowly to the tank. Raise the temperature to the mid-80s if your heater will hold that. Maintain the temp. and salt for at least 10 days after the last visible symptom. Watch respiration rates - Ich affects gills and the water hold less O2 anyway at higher temp, so if the fish are gasping, increase aeration.

I have used the same tecnique for loaches, tetras, whatever including tanks with catfish without ever, repeat ever, losing a fish or having Ich recur.

Catfish and loaches should not be maintained in water with salt chronically. For an acute period of disease treatment, it does no harm at the specified dose. All the rest of dire warnings are myth.

If you add the salt dry and the catfish is sitting in it, that is not the way to do it. If you over or underdose, that is not right either (you can go higher without scaleless fish, 1 1/2 teaspoons per gal, but should not need to do so).

Thanks for the info, i am just confused on how often i should be adding the salt. If i add the salt today, when do i re-add the salt.
My temp is at 85 right now and i added 10 teaspns predisolved yesterday. I guess i will need to add 30 mopre teaspns.. right??
 
You do still need to add 30 more tsps to reach the correct dosage. The only time you will need to ADD more salt is when you do a water change. If you remove 11 g of water, you need to replace those 11 tsps of salt with the replacement water. Of course, after the '10 days after ich disappears' treatment, you will need to remove the salt with multiple partial changes. Unlike meds, salt has no 'half-life' and so doesn't break down or get removed by filtration :D
Any clearer?

HTH
T
 
When I added salt to treat for ich, I added 1 tbsp for every 5 gal 3 times for a total of 3 tbsp per 5 gal over a 36 hour period. I have a 100 gal, so I put 20 tbsp in a small cup and placed in a region that has good flow. The salt dissolves slowly this way, and after 12 hours I dumped the remaining salt out of the cup. I then refilled it with another 20 tbsp and repeated. 12 hours later I repeated again for the final dose. I left the salt in for 7 days (about 4 days after the spots disappeared) and then did daily water changes of 10, 15, 30, and 50%. After that I went back to my bi-weekly changes of 20-25%.
I have also heard that scaleless fishes don't like meds or salt. I had synodontis and pictus cats and hillstream loaches, none of which appeared to mind the salt.
I also bumped my temp to 84 from 80.
I've heard that you should do frequent water changes and replace the salt that was removed, but for some reason I didn't do any water changes during my treatment. But everything still worked out well. Hope this helps, good luck.
 
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