The aquarium salt that I got is from Doc Wellfish's. It says it's all natural, from evaporated sea water. If it really is sea salt, there should be some other stuff in there besides NaCl, minerals and the like (potassium, phosphorous, etc.). That might account for my GH rise.
It is possible it has some cantaminatns, one of the downsides of "freshwater aquarium salt" is that we really don't know what is or isn't in the box. Unlike food grade salt it does not undergo the testing and scrutiny. GH test kits pick up specifically on calcium and Magnesium so if the GH elevated, it would be one of those ions.
I don't really have an opinion, one way or the other. Just doing what the LFS guy said. From what I understand about salt, it basically irritates the fish a little bit, causing them to produce more of a slime coat. This slime coat is supposed to be beneficial for the healing process and that was what I was after. Whatever it did, it worked. My angels' fins were a little bit ragged for a week after I returned my danios (they were chasing them and nipping their fins like crazy). What's worse, the fins seemed to be receding. That's why I was worried about fin fungus. I added the salt and a week later, I started seeing definite signs of healing and re-growth. Now, their fins are back to normal.
From your earlier posts I somewhat mis-understood why you were using salt. It does have it's purposes for more than just ich, but as you suggest it should not be used long term or chronically. It does not do everything the label claims, But it does have uses against some ifections, parasites, and nitrite poisoning.
But. since it seems to have no long-term benefits, I'm going to stop using it and keep it around only for the off-chance of an ich attack (knock on wood that it doesn't happen).
look on the bright side, even with the lower levels of salt you may have killed ich off if you did have it. Most Freshwater ich is intolerant of salt even at 0.6 teaspoons per gallon. We reccomend higher doage when combatting ich because some strains can resist low levels, but in many cases 3 teaspoons per gallon would do the trick. You may never have to worry about ich because of the salt use.
I also don't think it was any kind of deliberate conspiracy by the LFS to sell me salt. I've had it for over 3 weeks now and, after regular use, I've only used a quarter of the container, if that. And, it only cost 3 bucks. I was really convinced that my fish had some kind of fungal disease and I said as much to the LFS guy. He could have easily sold me 20+ bucks of medication. Instead, he opted for the 3 dollar container of salt.
My cpmments were directed at the manufacturers and wholesalers, most LFS people are victims of MArketing, Just like the end users of the products. I'm sure the LFS guy doesn't know better and is probaly just advising what he thinks best. the manufacturer is a different story, they know what goes in the box, they know what their profit margins are, and they continue to market NaCL for far more than it should cost, and their label still reccomends use that us unnecessary and detrimental to our fish. They additionally go as far as not listing any good information about the product so people cannot find out what it really is if they want to. Table salt is IMO a far better choice for purity reasons alone.
I use Mortons salt, If I buy it directly for the tanks I ge the non-iodized stuff because I don't really need the iodide, if I use what we keep in the house it is usually iodized, but works just as well. The iodide levels are trace, and have no ill effects that I have ever seen.
Dave
