salt and bettas?

L

LauraL

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Jan 1, 2009
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Woke up this morning to find Rudy working on what looks like a case of gill rot. :( The water parameters are pretty good - nitrate was a touch high, but still within safe parameters. None of the other fish have any signs of problems.

I did a quick water change just in case and am now headed to LFS to get something anti-bacterial to deal with it.

Question - has anyone used aquarium salt with their bettas? I know it's often recommended for other sick fish, but I've never tried it with these guys.

Thanks!
 
I always put in salt with my bettas. The first time I forgot, they got ich.
Not sure if / how it helps with skin problems, but salt does have antibacterial properties.
 
Thank you! I just dosed him with erythromycin, which looks like it should cover gill rot, general ulcers, or anything else. (It doesn't look stringy or fuzzy, and neither he nor the other fish have spots anywhere else so I don't think it's a fungus or ich.)

But is a little salt okay for snails? And can you use it with a medication, like e-mycin?
 
I have never read anything (that I recall) about not using salt with medicine (but I've only been at this a few years).

As for snails, some are ok with salt, just for safety you don't want the salt to touch the snails, so either dissolve the salt in a cup in aquarium water before adding it, or you can hold / set a fish net in the tank and put the salt in there and let it dissolve. (Even mystery snails can get used to some salt in the water as long as it doesn't touch them.)

If the medicine bottle says anything about snails or invertebrates, they'll need to come out (if possible) though.
Other than that, I think your ok.
:)
 
I would not add salt to a tank that has snails you want to keep, they are generally not very tolerant to salt at all.
 
i have snails in with my guppies and always have salt in the tanks. the snails breed faster then i can get rid of them.
 
what type of snails are they?
different kinds are more or less susceptible to salt.

mystery snails - depends on who you ask
nerites - will only reproduce in salt water, so should be ok in salted setups
mts - I have read both that they are intolerant of salt and that they are great with it. So who knows?
 
New to thread, but I was going to buy a betta for my freshwater planted. I don't really want to add salt to my planted tank, they can do fine without salt too right? I had my heart set on a really nice halfmoon here at my local betta breeding store.
 
cradlefan said:
New to thread, but I was going to buy a betta for my freshwater planted. I don't really want to add salt to my planted tank, they can do fine without salt too right? I had my heart set on a really nice halfmoon here at my local betta breeding store.
Click to expand...

Yes they will be just fine without salt.
 
I have used erythromycin, the plants in the tank did not tolerate this very well at all and the snails (briggs & nerites) did not either, so your best bet would be to remove the snails. Also, the use of this medicine can kill off the beneficial bacteria in the tank, so you may want to cut a piece of your filter pad off and place it on/in a filter in a untreated tank to save as much BB as you can in case you do experience a mini cycle. Good luck!
 
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