And the endless salt debate rages on....

[beefsteak]

So, our store (PetSmart) had an employee meeting on Sunday night. One of the issues that was raised was the addition of salt in freshwater aquariums. We were informed that salt helps lower nitrites and that we should be informing customers of this when they purchase fish.

Now, I'm constantly informing customers that salt in not necessary in their tanks. I've had to resist many a time the urge to tear down our signs advocating the addition of salt in freshwater aquariums. I have a wonderful post by liv2padl bookmarked that I've contemplated printing out many a time on the subject. I just got through today explaining the whole salt issue to one of my superiors who had some questions about it.

All of that aside I guess my question is does salt significantly reduce nitrites? Because I was under the impression it was only a very temporary solution. I'd very much like to get my facts straight before I go preaching them to customers as fact.

 

[Weezer]

I don't have the seed's to go there, but i don't use it, if i did would my rites be less than 0, Many people here don't use it regularly. I wonder what a vote would end up being.......

 

[fballguy]

I've heard of using salt to reduce nitrites, but that sounds bogus to me. Nothing beats a water change for lowering high parameters.

 

[Blueiz]

Salt in itself does not reduce nitrites, it reduces the toxicity of the nitrites to fish. There is NOTHING that will remove them from the water other than water changes and live plants(fast growing for the most part)

If I am wrong, someone please correct me.

Blue

 

[Sammie7]

I think the myth may have come from salt helping the fish to cope with nitrite poisoning. http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/nitritepoison.htm

 

[phanmc]

Salt does not remove nitrites. Take a water sample with high nitrite and add salt to it, you'll find that nitrite levels will not go down.

What salt may do is lower the nitrite toxicity somewhat, but it does not remove the danger of nitrites. It is very much a temporary fix, continued exposure to nitrites will still kill the fish.

 

[Linariel]

Could you link me to that post? I'd be interested in reading it.

I work at PetSmart as well, and I don't know if you do this too, but we have salt in all our aquariums, and we check the salinity daily. I think it's a load of crap, but I have no scientific backing for this.

 

[musho3210]

i have no scientific reasoning but when i was cycling i added salt, when i hit the nitrite phase i still added salt but the nitrite still climbed and didnt lower, even after a higher salt level. I stopped adding salt and the nitrite stayed at the same level, it later dropped a few days but that was the end of the cycle anyway.

If the tank is mature there is no nitrite therefor no need for salt. Tell the customers nothing beats a good water change. Also say if you have a nice mature tank you wont need to spend money on salt.

 

[12 Volt Man]

salt helps to stop nitrite poisoning because the sodium ion bonds to the hemoglobin molecule (the red blood cell).

this prevents the nitrite ion from bonding to it.

it works quite well.

but as mentioned, it does not lower the nitrites.

 

[ct-death]

The link to liv2padl's post is here: http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85698

*There are a lot of good reads in the Article Section...

And as for this issue, this is really a cycling issue that offers a quick fix for lazy/busy people (and also offers a solution to nitrite rich household water), but it does not show any benefit for long-term FW use.