Discus and salt

[bojon]

I was chating with a pet shop owner oneday and he said, if discus
doesnt like to eat, add some salt to the water can help. Can
anyone confirm this? but adding salt will raise the KH which is not
good for discus I thought.

[Julie]

Salt will reduce stress and possibly stimulate appetite at 1-2 tblsp/10 gallon.

Salt will decrease the KH - if you're KH is relatively high it shouldn't be a problem.

Julie

[BigDaddy]

Proper aquarium salt should not affect kH, as there are little to no carbonates in it.  It shouldn't affect pH either, which is what the discus are sensitive to.

[Julie]

Sea Salt from the bulk food store decreases my kh numerous degrees.  Too many swings in gh/kh will weaken the discus immune system.

[TR]

Hi Bojon: As we all know, good old salt in the aquarium hobby has been one of the oldest remedies around.  It's been used from healing ragged fins on fish, certian parasites, fungus, and even used to treat the water to neutralize water (i.e. chlorine, chloramine) when making water changes.

It's real gift towards fish seems to be that it stimulates the fishes gill funtion... it acts like a natural tonic to the fish.  I dont know or have ever heard of it increasing its appetite personally though.   My guess is that when people have used salt to remedy on the fish for whatever reason, it boosted the fishes heath somewhat, so it being or feeling better makes the fish look or act more vibrant.

I would look at why your concern is that you might think the fish is not eating or needs to eat more.  Environment/water quality, type of food, quality of food, etc.. and then narrow it down to it being the fishes health, as any fish that is sick or a little "off" health wise its going to be slightly off for sure.

The goal for you will have to be to diagnose what's wrong and what has happenend to the fish.  It might have internal worms/ parasites... Whether or not the pet store owner is right or heard about the salt being able to increase the fishes appetite or not,  you and only you will know your fish and what's going on with it!

There will always be remedies out there to help us if need be.  But the first step should be to find out why a heathy looking fish is not eating and/or if it's not eating right!

Well then... just how healthy is it?

                                              TR

P.S. If it were me, I would stick with aquarium salt rather than say... table salt or sea salt... just to be on the safe side of things.

[BigDaddy]

Never use table salt in an aquarium.

[BigDaddy]

Sea Salt from the bulk food store decreases my kh numerous degrees.  Too many swings in gh/kh will weaken the discus immune system.

I suspect that the salt you are adding is acting like a water softener...  you still have the same mineral content in your tank (and thus your pH remains stable), it's just being replaced by sodium....

Are you sure your kH drops and not your gH?  Usually, when you add a softener, it's the gH that drops down to next to nothing.

[bojon]

Interesting. it is good to learn that adding salt may increase
the appetite of discus. My KH and GH is very low now,
KH ~ 30ppm and GH ~ 20ppm so I don't think I need to adjust
it any lower. The health of my fish is pretty good, i guess they
just need to adjust to the new env....thx everyone!

[Julie]

Hi BD, out of curiousity I tested my well water before and after the softener:
Well Water GH 18 KH 15
After Softener GH 5 KH 12

Perhaps coincidentally the change in KH is due to degassing, but if I remember correctly I get the same result in the tank.   I can't remember the GH last time I used salt.

[BigDaddy]

And this is sea salt?

It is definately acting just like a water softener... your gH reading is dropping by over two thirds, which is typical for a water softener... exchanging calcium and magnesium ions with sodium.  (at least I'm pretty sure that's it)

kH is not affected from outgasing.  It is a measure of carbonate hardness in the water, not a soluable gas.

[Julie]

I used sea salt in the tank.

Well water is saturated with c02.  C02 degasses, PH increases, water becomes more alkaline, kh drops slightly.  My tank will drop 2 degrees kh after degassing.