Clown Loach Round 3

Vyper said:
Hi Steve,

I've got 3 clown loaches, and feel salt is a must. I keep my clowns in a ratio of 1 tablespoon of salt per 5 gallons of water and they do absolutely fine, I'm sure if you add some salt to your aquarium your clown loaches may well recoveer. I found most people who dont use salt often suffer from bouts of ick and fungus etc and by simply adding salt this will help reduce/eradicate any such problems, certainly ick hates salt so by adding this you should find you greatly improve the situation . My only advice is to add the salt slowly take a few days to get up to the salt ratio I mentioned above, dont just throw the whole lot in instantly. By the way enusre the salt you add is aquarium salt and not just your bog standard table salt, table salts etc contain chemiicals which are known to be harmful to fish.

Also I'm going to suggest something that no doubt every one will object to but clorine isn't a massive threat either in low doses infact I find it can help. For example I do a 20% water change of my aquarium once a week and dont bother with decloronising the water simply because I have it on good advice that this low amount of clorine helps reduce parasites in the water and wont harm your fish at such low levels.
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That's simply impossible. Imagine living in an airtight room that had a tube pumping oxygen in it. Then pour in massive amounts of carbon dioxide with the oxygen. You'll slowly, but surely, die. That's what chlorine does to the tank. And not only that, the reason they can stand salt is the fact that the salt you are using is not marine salt. They cannot stand marine salt A BIT.

The spike below their eye is a mechanism that rips through their skin when they're scared or above water. They take out the spikes (one under each eye) and flail like mad to hit the aggressor. But don't worry, they dont do this in the tank, so they cant harm your fish.

How big is the tank? Loaches grow to a good 1 foot and are used as food in Malaysia. So 5 feet of fish is a lot...
 
Hi Every1,

Oddball~ I wasn't sure why you thought my fish were slowly suffercating, all I was saying was that on a 20% water change each week I do not treat my replacment water with a decloroniser, as you no doubt are aware any clorine in the water is completely gone after 24 hrs so it's not like theres a constant build up of the stuff. Granted large amounts are dangerous but at the low levels I've suggested its not a problem. Besides all which my tank isn't air tight anyway. Sorry if there was any confussion on this.
 
Hi guys oddball my tank is huge 800 litres 6' length x 2'wide x 27" high good info about that spike... thats exactly what my clown had protruding under his eye ... I thank you
 
There is absolutely no reason to add salt to a freshwater tank, ick is introduced with other fish/plants/water etc so by quarentining new fish you will not get an outbreak.Besides many fish cannot talerate it(scale less fish like clowns in particular).

Salt belongs in marine and brackish tanks, NOT freshwater tanks.

Many newly purchased clowns die because of poor shipping/lfs conditions, they dont react well to this and often dont feed well in the lfs, so when you get them they are usually in a pretty bad shape(skinny and showing signs of ick/fungus).If your buying clowns make sure you pick the brightest/fattest looking and quarentining them is a must.Once they settle in an begin eating well they are actually very hardy, in the 8 or so years I have had mine they have had very few problems only getting ich once or twice due to unquarentined new arrivals(my fault though).
 
Hi there Haggiman, I thank you for your advice & I'm on the way to look at your link... BTW never tried Haggis before, but its supposed to be ok :D
 
Excellent Info, always willing to learn more ... I also have a link for people to look at, it tells us the myths & truths about this much discussed topic Click Here
 
Skepitcal Aquarist said and I Quote " Salt (sodium chloride).
The uses and misuses of salt in freshwater aquaria rate their own page. In the fourth century B.C. Aristotle placed freshwater fish into seawater to observe their reactions. The aquarist's oldest treatment for freshwater skin and gill parasites is salt. "Salt is Nature's remedy for many ills," wrote William T. Innes in Exotic Aquarium Fishes, 1935, and salt as a medication survives from that era, when aquarists had very little else to turn to. A salt dip or a salt bath still has uses. Careful! an effective salt bath will kill many plants. Conversely, how effective on ciliate parasites is a salt bath that doesn't kill plants? Temperature should be raised to 80oF. Mr. Innes' recommended concentration began with two level teaspoons of salt per gallon (the equivalent of 0.2% salinity) and built up gradually over 24 hours to four teaspoons/gallon. If no improvement was noted, by the third day you could go to six (that's two level tablespoons), as long as the fish were showing no signs of distress. "At the end of treatment, slowly add fresh water until the salt content is low before returning fish to the aquarium." Modern variants of the salt dose vary: a common version recommends just half of Mr. Innes' concentrations.

Salt tolerance in freshwater fishes varies. The percomorph fishes, like cichlids and anabantoids, are derived from marine ancestors in the age of dinosaurs. In general, they are more salt-tolerant than ostariophysii, the loaches and minnows, characins and catfish that have descended from freshwater " :)
 
Here are my 6-10 year old clowns(4-7") in their salt free tank ;)

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Beautiful to see them.... Thanks ;) I will master these lovely fish ....
 
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