Salt Debate

You're using salt as a medication. Meds have side effects. There are bad things they do as well as good ones. Aspirin attacks the stomach lining and can give you stomach ulcers. Paracetamol attacks the liver and can kill you at levels starting at only twice that used for pain relief. Citalopram makes you feel like puking. It's always a balance of benefit against deficit. Short term salt use is less harmful than ich infestation, and it's less harmful than nitrite poisoning, for example.

This is worth remembering; salt is not an alternative to medication; it is a medication.
 
I wonder what he has to say about the studies on salt (NaCl) and nitrite toxicity concerning fish farms...same conditions: stressed fish, salt added...logically these fish should then die using his blanket statement. Granted, these often do not involve "delicate, tropical cyprinids" but you would think the same biological and chemical processes would apply on some level. Eventually something would go wrong.

I would think most harm comes from:

1) Salt that is not pre-dissolved
2) Resistant strains
3) Wrong dosage

I've personally never heard of this specific treatment killing a fish outright as opposed to other complicating factors, but then again, I don't frequent many forums, etc. As Karl said, it is still technically a medication so the author does have a point. I just don't think it is that extreme, personally.
 
Don't think I've seen it addressed in this thread so far:

What about salt treatment and scaleless fish?

My understading is that this is a no-no, and that meds are better. Is that true?
 
I have read several scholarly articles, written by DVMs on this subject, that do advocate the use of salt medicinally. Lupin, KarlTH, and other highly experienced fishkeepers have recommended, and not indiscriminately nor injudiciously, the use of salt to treat FW fish, and many aquarist here on AC, myself included, have used salt medicinally, and safely.

Here is a link to a scholarly article that advocates the use of salt in treating freshwater fish for parasites, for nitrite poisoning which can cause brown blood disease, and even advocates as an aid when shipping fish.

The artilcle was written by Ruth Francis-Floyd, D.V.M., M.S., associate professor, Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine; Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences; Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, 32611.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vm007


I believe, from reading many scholarly articles, from seeing the results personally, and from seeing the results of others on AC, that difficulties arise for the reasons Jpappy brought out.

Also, as in the course of many illnesses, whether fish or humans,
the patient may succomb to the illness despite the best methods and best efforts to cure the patient.
 
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Oooops, I meant to put my comma after DVMs in my post above.

Oh, and some of the articles/papers/abstracts that I have read were written by biologists/researchers who were not DVMs. I used to have those articles and the links saved on my laptop, but my hard drive was fried and replaced, recently, so I lost them.

I imagine there may be other researchers/biologist/vets out there that disagree with the use of salt for treating FW fish, but I've only seen the ones state that salt can and should be used at times.
 
joel.uejio said:
Don't think I've seen it addressed in this thread so far:

What about salt treatment and scaleless fish?

My understading is that this is a no-no, and that meds are better. Is that true?
Click to expand...

Can't see why. It's not as if scales actually make a big change to the permeability of fish skin. Scaled and scaleless fish alike have semipermeable skins. Besides, I'm not sure if may of the so-called scaleless fish actually are scaleless; they may have very small scales or bony plates instead. I think it's one of those oft quoted things which may not actually have a basis at all.
 
Thanks, Pappy, I'll check that out.
 
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