Bottom feeder with guppies and their salt

[illusion54]

Hello all,

I have a 10 gallon with 8 guppies in it. I would like to add some type of bottom feeder, but the cories i would like cant tolerate the salt. So, what bottom feeder would be able to live in the 10 gallon, get along with the guppies, handle the salt, and eat leftovers on the bottom?

Thanks!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Your tank is already stocked to the limits although you could posibly get away with a ghost shrimp or 2 but they don't tolerate salt- are you using salt constantly in the tank or only for short term medical reasons and if so, what are you treating?

 

[illusion54]

Your tank is already stocked to the limits although you could posibly get away with a ghost shrimp or 2 but they don't tolerate salt- are you using salt constantly in the tank or only for short term medical reasons and if so, what are you treating?

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Most likely constantly, just 1 tablespoon. Ive read that livebearers do better with salt, correct me if im wrong?

 

[Annastasia]

That's debatable, actually...but I'll just say, I've kept Guppies with no salt and Cories for a good many years now. Never had any troubles, to speak of. But it's all up to you. I've personally found the ones that really seemed to like salt better were Platies, Swordies and Mollies, not Guppies, so much. Your choice though, as it's your tank. Maybe try a few weeks with no salt, before you get Cories, and see if there seems to be any difference for the Guppies?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Actually salt is realy bad for corys, it hurts their skin you see and is lethal to many. Salt usuage is only semi vital for mollys(depending on wether they have been raised in brackish or freshwater) while as livebearers like guppys never come into contact with salt in the wild at all- the only reason why it is beneficial to mollys is because they can live in brackish and semi brackish habitats in the wild.
Salt is primarily used to treat deseases like whitespot and fungus but is still stressful in itself for fish- it may be killing any deseases weak against salt in your water but on the other hand if your guppys imune systems aern't fighting trace amounts of these deseases that naturally occur in the water they imune systems will weaken and will hav even less resistance to it if they ever do incounter them.
Guppys livers/filter organs aern't designed to cope with filtering salt through the body 24/7 so as a result will have lowered life expectancys- they may never run the risk of getting whitespot or fungus in a salted tank but they also won't live out their lives to the max- and guppy life expectancy aern't long at that now days either due to their inbreeding in so many varietys.
Deseases like fungus and whitespot only come about if the fish are living in stressful conditions or you buy a fish and don't quarentine it and its carrying the desease, so if you take good care of your tanks and buy new fish carefully you won't ever have to worry about these deseases and don't need to buy salt ever .
Catfish like corys and plecs, tetras, various sharks and loachs and other "scaless" fish are all intolerant to salt- i wouldn't advise you buy any of these fish for your tank as long as it has salt in it as in the majority of cases they'll die either within a matter of days or months, either way they won't be that happy.

 

[illusion54]

Ok i think i'll wait about a month before i get cories, that way i can do water changes to slowly get the salt out.

 

[cheken]

Ok i think i'll wait about a month before i get cories, that way i can do water changes to slowly get the salt out.

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yeah i can agree with these guys i have 6 platie 6 gupies 1 of which is a male lucky thing!! and to peppered cory they all get really well. my two corys constantly go round searching the floor ive only used salt once to treat a desease and even then i quarrentiened the fish because of the corysso its all good with out using salt

hope this helps

cheken