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Can I Add Salt In A Tank With...

bamf

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...2 black molies
2 guppies
4 glow tetras
2 glow danios
2 zebra danios
??
 
I would like to treat my 2 black mollies with salt bath for fungus, I don't have an extra aquarium to isolate them so, can I add salt with guppies, danios and tetras in the tank?
 
As a treatment, yes, but this is probably not the best fungus treatment.  If you can provide some data on the tank and perhaps a photo, others will be able to advise.
 
Byron said:
As a treatment, yes, but this is probably not the best fungus treatment.  If you can provide some data on the tank and perhaps a photo, others will be able to advise.
Thank you for the reply. Just would like to mention that I treated the aquarium with all in one remedy medicine for 5 days and since yesterday I stopped as written on the medicine itself. Pictures can be found on my google drive here--->>> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1zgOVkkawyaSFdnU185SW5DdkE 
Some more info about my aquarium:
Aquarium size: Column 15 gal
Total fish: 12
  • 2 black molly (male&female)
  • 2 guppies (male&female)
  • 4 glow tetra
  • 2 zebra danio
  • 2 glow danio
Plants: 2
Decoration: 1 rock
Water type: fresh water
Days aquarium is operating: 14
Water changes until now:  1 water change on the 7th day 20% of water were replaced; 1 25% water change yesterday
Gravel vacuum: 1 time on the 7th day, 1 time yesterday
Last water testing from yesterday:
AMONIA - 0.5
NITRATE - 0
NITRITE - 0
TOTAL HARDNESS - 75 (soft)
TOTAL CHLORINE - 0
TOTAL ALKALINITY - 0 (Low)
pH - 7.2
 
There are a couple issues here.  I'll start with the mollies since that was the initial question you asked.
 
First point is cycling.  If you don't know about cycling, have a look at the articles in the "Cycle Your Tank" section of this forum, here http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?/forum/291-cycle-your-tank/
 
Mollies are highly sensitive to any form of nitrogen, by which I mean ammonia, nitrite or nitrate.  They are not good fish to put in a new tank.  So this weakens them, and weakened fish are more susceptible to disease as a result of the stress from the cycling or whatever. 
 
Second point on the mollies is that your water is much too soft for these fish.  Mollies must have moderately hard to hard water.  The "hard" minerals like calcium and magnesium are crucial to their health and physiology.  Some people think adding salt solves this, but it does not because the calcium and magnesium is still absent.  I don't want to get into the complex subject of adjusting water parameters; even if you did harden the water for the mollies, the other fiish which are soft water species would have issues.  The two do not mix.
 
With the GH and especially Alkalinity so low, the pH over time will tend to lower, becoming acidic.  This will not hurt the soft water fish if you are regular with weekly partial water changes to keep it balanced, but the mollies will have more and more difficulty.  Shimmying, fungus, etc is common with mollies when something is wrong with the water, and here it can be the GH, pH or ammonia, or all of them.
 
"All in one" treatments are generally more harm than good.  Every substance added to the water in an aquarium will get inside the fish.  For this reason alone, one has to be very careful, and only add what is absolutely necessary.  The medication here would be useless with the cycling and soft water issues, so it has actually added more stress to the fish.  Several partial water changes will help clear this out, and on their own as water changes cannot hurt regardless.  The first thing I always do when I see signs of any possible issue is a water change, along with testing the water of course.
 
Byron.
 
Hi bamf. I had good luck using artemiss on 2 tiny patches of fungus on a fish that I got recently. It is supposed to be safe for all aquatic life, including plants. It did not clear up one spot on his eye, but I'm not sure that particular spot is fungus.

Byron is 100% right about the mollies too. I tried to keep one in my soft water and she was fine for months, but she started glass-surfing, hanging out near the heater, and then even shimmying. I had to give her to someone who had harder water.
 
My first tank was 15 gal. It came with a dozen red Platies,but I wanted some variety. After giving half the Platies away, I added a couple Dalmatian Mollies. The store clerk told me these two species like brackish water. I added a pinch of SEA salt, which makes the water harder and brackish. NOTE: DO NOT ADD SNAILS. They do not like salt. It kills them!
 

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