Salt in freshwater tank

[Pondlady]

I'm cycling a new tank and just read a post saying neons can't handle salt in the water. I've already salted and dechlorinated the water and doused it with bacteria.

I know livebearers like salt but what other fish can't handle salt? I want to have angels, cardinals, corys, kuhli loaches, maybe try bbgobies, etc...

I know angels eat neons, but what about cardinals?

 

[CFC]

As a rule no Amazonian species like salt so this rules out the Angels and i think the cardinals as well,scaleless fish like corys and loaches will also dislike the salt.But its not all bad news most gobie species need the addition of salt to their water to survive.

Angel fish will eat any fish they can fit in their mouth (and are quite succesful predators) so full grown (4cm) cardinals should be ok,however since cardinals usually arrive in the shops at a smaller size than neons do you would have to either keep them seperate until grown or not add the angels until a later date.

 

[Pondlady]

Maybe I'll skip the angels. I'm thinking that maybe I should do some water changes to dillute the salt. I was under the impression that it was good for all fish. There was nothing on the container warning about species' tolerances.

I wish somebody had a site where you could punch in your conditions and it would spit out a list of fish that are good for your tank.

It's hard to remember everything about every fish.

 

[Kryten]

Neons and cardinals are a definite no-no as thery have no scales, and the addition of salt will kill them. Loaches will also suffer the same fate, particularly clown and Kuhli loaches.

It may be a bummer if you can't have them but there are some beautiful alternatives

 

[Pondlady]

Should I just be changing the water and skip the salt? Apparently it must not be necessary. I want to be able to buy a variety of fish. I'd hate to pickle the poor things

 

[Kryten]

It will be very difficult to get rid of all the salt in the water. You could always get a second tank .

Some of the moderators or indeed other forum members may be able to help more, but I would be inclined to look for types of fish that are classed as bracking, which includes the livebearers (mollies, guppies, platies etc), cichlids and many more

Other option is to drain the tank, wash the plants and gravel; thoroughly and start again, but you are going to undo a lot of work if you go down that path, such as the cycle that will have started.

I have seen full grown angels that wil suck up adult cardinals like they're candy, same with all small tetras, though the much bigger black tetras are fine, and are beautiful in their own right

 

[CFC]

Salt in freshwater is normally only used for medicinal purposes,some fw fish such as livebearers do like a little salt in their water but imo should be kept in species tanks of livebearers

 

[Kryten]

You can keep livebearers in non-salt tanks. I have 4 platies in a tank with neons and a betta, so I can't add salt. Three platies are fine, and the fourth perks right up after I have given him a salt bath. Even without this, it isn't really a problem.

The only disadvantage of keeping livebearers in a non-salt tank is the reduced chance of pregnancy or having surviving fry. If this is not a point of concern, thats all the better for you

 

[DizzyDezzy]

How much salt have you put in?
I've added neons to a salted tank once, only one of them died (he had a gill injury that I discovered while he was still in the bag from the shop). I had 1 teaspoon of sea salt in 10 gallons of water...
So dilluting it would probably work fine.

 

[Pufferpack]

How big of a tank are you talking about? Green Spotted Puiffers are a good BW fish (not necessarily the most sociable though ), or some of the other smaller puffers like Figure 8's, I believe they do best in light brackish .
Something to keep in mind though, if you are looking to go to a light brackish tank, salt and Sea salt are different. I'm not sure why myself (I'm still pretty new) but I'll bet one of the other folks here will be able to answer that for us.

 

[Pondlady]

It's a 55 gal. Since I had just set up the tank three days earlier, I decided to drain the majority of the water and refill it on Thur. I dechlorinated and added StressZyme to get the water going again. Saturday I added some plants, 7 zebra danios and 2 corys (plus three small goldfish that will be going into a pond in a couple of weeks) Everyone seems fine and they already know the sound of the lid opening