How Much Salt Should I Use In My Hospital Tank?

[Epicspec]

I have too ten gallon hospital tanks
One will hold some small comet gold with with cotton wool
And the other will have five neon tetras with cotton wool

 

[Crossfire]

Cotton wool, is actually a bacterial infection, not fungal. So Antibiotics are needed, I recommend API Furan-2 or Seachem KanaPlex.
Set the temperature in both tanks (slowly) to exactly 74* degrees farenheit. This is the perfect temperature to combat columnaris (cotton wool).
I suspect both tanks have filters and heaters?

Aquarium salt should be dosed at one teaspoon per 5 gallons, so 2 teaspoons for each tank. Remember, that salt damages plants, snails, and scaleless fish like plecos, corys, loaches etc.
Aquarium salt should only be added with every water change.

How big is the tank the comet lives in normally? How big is the neon tetra's tank? (not the hospitals, the main tanks)

 

[Epicspec]

Neon tetras usually live in my twenty gallon
And the comets are from school somebody bought them and put them in the thirty gallon tank without telling anybody. all goldfish had the dease

 

[LongS]

I used salt to treat whitespot on my loaches before with an excellent outcome. I read that whilst salt is harmful in large doses and to a lengthy exposure to scale less fish that temporary treatment is not to anything to be particularly worried about. However this is only what my research has told me and personal experience. I wouldn't hesitate to use salt with loaches again if need be.

 

[Epicspec]

The neon tetras don't have the deases bad they just have very small fluffs some of ther mouths

 

[Crossfire]

Ok, sounds good.
You do know that comets will get huge and produce a lot of waste, and need giant tanks, or better yet, ponds?
How many do you have? Unless you plan on putting them in a huge tank or a pond, I suggest after they are cured, you find a good friend with a pond or sell them to someone who does.

Keep with salt, use antibiotics, keep temperature at 74*, keep clean water, and follow the directions on the antibiotics, and they'll be fine.
I suggest Seachem KanaPlex, as columnaris causes fish to lose their appatites, and the KanaPlex works against that

If you can, feed your fish food that has been soaked in garlic juice. You can either buy it (Seachem Garlic Guard) or make it yourself, i can tell you how.
Garlic boosts the immun system while stimulating appatite.

Are the neon tetras alone in the 20g or are there other fish? Columnaris is contagious something fierce

 

[Epicspec]

I do get them to nibble on garlic once in a while

The neon were with other fish

But so far only a couple of the neons. Have it but I don't want to risk my other fish and I don't want to stress them by separating the school

They are with other fish in the twenty gallon

No of the other fish have it

 

[Crossfire]

What fish are in the 20g?

 

[Epicspec]

1 Bristle nose pleco, 2 kuhli loaches, 1 cherry barb, 2 male blue rams( they get along so far), and three assasian snails

 

[Crossfire]

Is there sand subsrate for the kuhli loaches? They need sand for their sensitive whiskers. I would look into getting at least 5 more kuhli loaches after this is done. And you can have 10 neon tetras, including the ones you already have

I would start dosing the 20g with Melafix. It is an antiseptic and will prevent infection. Clean water is a must too, weekly water changes are necesary.

 

[colleen0309]

Be careful with the salt. The pleco, kullis, and rams are sensitive. Some people may get away with using it, but with plecos and rams, I've never had much luck using salt.

 

[Crossfire]

He's not using the salt in the 20g, only in the the two hospital tanks.

 

[nmonks]

Then you've probably not been using it right.

Salt is much safer that many of the common whitespot medications that contain copper and/or formalin. It's recommended by vets as a safe alternative. It's the best way to treat species like loaches and catfish that react badly to copper in particular.

The common misunderstanding is the idea that medicines are safe -- they are not. Almost by definition, they're poisons, and what makes them relatively safe to use is knowing how much to dose so that it kills the pathogen or parasite without yet killing the host (the patient).

Used at 2 gram/litre, tonic salt is extremely well tolerated by even soft water species. Raising the temperature alongside the salt speeds up the whitespot life cycle, speeding the whole thing down to a 1-2 week usage of salt. After that, do the water change, and the parasite should be eliminated from your aquarium.

Salt has little to no value when treating fungal infections. True, fungus is rare in brackish and marine aquaria, but the safe salt concentrations around the 2 g/l mark seems not to be a useful therapy for fungal infections in freshwater tanks. Methylene blue is probably the least toxic treatment, and can be used safely with even baby fish and eggs. But it is a relatively mild medication, so best used to prevent fungal infections (e.g., on injured fish) or very slight infections; if the fish is seriously "fluffy", you might find a more potent, but also more risky, medication works better.

Cheers, Neale

PS. For what it's worth, the Common Plec species is abundant in brackish water habitats in Florida; clearly, the much lower salt concentration needed to treat whitespot will have no impact on its health.

PPS. You might want to see what Bob Fenner has to say about Melafix over at Wet Web Media. Though often recommended because it's said to be cheap and safe, he's not a fan, and nor are a great many experienced aquarists. I'm on the fence about it. I'd never use it myself as anything other than a preventative, and it certainly isn't a reliable treatment to use when fish are seriously injured or sick. But I'm not as sure as Bob is that it's a total waste of time and money. That said, he's a far more experienced aquarist than I am, and has spoken to a great many more aquarists around the world than me.

Be careful with the salt. The pleco, kullis, and rams are sensitive. Some people may get away with using it, but with plecos and rams, I've never had much luck using salt.

 

[nmonks]

Then you've probably not been using it right.

Salt is much safer that many of the common whitespot medications that contain copper and/or formalin. It's recommended by vets as a safe alternative. It's the best way to treat species like loaches and catfish that react badly to copper in particular.

The common misunderstanding is the idea that medicines are safe -- they are not. Almost by definition, they're poisons, and what makes them relatively safe to use is knowing how much to dose so that it kills the pathogen or parasite without yet killing the host (the patient).

Used at 2 gram/litre, tonic salt is extremely well tolerated by even soft water species. Raising the temperature alongside the salt speeds up the whitespot life cycle, speeding the whole thing down to a 1-2 week usage of salt. After that, do the water change, and the parasite should be eliminated from your aquarium.

Salt has little to no value when treating fungal infections. True, fungus is rare in brackish and marine aquaria, but the safe salt concentrations around the 2 g/l mark seems not to be a useful therapy for fungal infections in freshwater tanks. Methylene blue is probably the least toxic treatment, and can be used safely with even baby fish and eggs. But it is a relatively mild medication, so best used to prevent fungal infections (e.g., on injured fish) or very slight infections; if the fish is seriously "fluffy", you might find a more potent, but also more risky, medication works better.

Cheers, Neale

PS. For what it's worth, the Common Plec species is abundant in brackish water habitats in Florida; clearly, the much lower salt concentration needed to treat whitespot will have no impact on its health.

Be careful with the salt. The pleco, kullis, and rams are sensitive. Some people may get away with using it, but with plecos and rams, I've never had much luck using salt.

 

[Crossfire]

Then you've probably not been using it right.

Salt is much safer that many of the common whitespot medications that contain copper and/or formalin. It's recommended by vets as a safe alternative. It's the best way to treat species like loaches and catfish that react badly to copper in particular.

The common misunderstanding is the idea that medicines are safe -- they are not. Almost by definition, they're poisons, and what makes them relatively safe to use is knowing how much to dose so that it kills the pathogen or parasite without yet killing the host (the patient).

Used at 2 gram/litre, tonic salt is extremely well tolerated by even soft water species. Raising the temperature alongside the salt speeds up the whitespot life cycle, speeding the whole thing down to a 1-2 week usage of salt. After that, do the water change, and the parasite should be eliminated from your aquarium.

Salt has little to no value when treating fungal infections. True, fungus is rare in brackish and marine aquaria, but the safe salt concentrations around the 2 g/l mark seems not to be a useful therapy for fungal infections in freshwater tanks. Methylene blue is probably the least toxic treatment, and can be used safely with even baby fish and eggs. But it is a relatively mild medication, so best used to prevent fungal infections (e.g., on injured fish) or very slight infections; if the fish is seriously "fluffy", you might find a more potent, but also more risky, medication works better.

Cheers, Neale

PS. For what it's worth, the Common Plec species is abundant in brackish water habitats in Florida; clearly, the much lower salt concentration needed to treat whitespot will have no impact on its health.

Be careful with the salt. The pleco, kullis, and rams are sensitive. Some people may get away with using it, but with plecos and rams, I've never had much luck using salt.

The OP has a bristlenose plec, not a common plec. I don't think it is fungal, it sounds more like columnaris, a bacterial infection. Salt will help with that.
And there's no whitespot infections here.

Epicspec, can we have a picture of the fish?
And are the fish exhbiting any other symptons? Like lethargy, red streaking, fin rot, no appatite?