Will adding Salt harm my corys and clown pleco?

[RWC]

I was told to add salt to help my fish breathe because they are working too hard to live. Will adding salt to my tank harm the cory's and pleco?

[MatsP]

If there is an illness or some such, salt is fine with corys and clown plecos. However, you need to understand why your fish are having difficulty breathing, and fix that.

--
Mats

[RWC]

I don't know if they are having problems breathing, but my aquarium store told me that all fish need salt because there is a trace of salt in every body of water in the world. They said that the fish get stressed out from working to hard if they don't have salt to help their gills or something like that???

[andywoolloo]

I only use salt medicinally not as a matter of every day fish care.

[MatsP]

I don't know if they are having problems breathing, but my aquarium store told me that all fish need salt because there is a trace of salt in every body of water in the world. They said that the fish get stressed out from working to hard if they don't have salt to help their gills or something like that???

If you have REALLY soft water, then regular use of additional minerals may be required. Most likely, if you are on a regular supply of water (not your own well or some such), then your water is stabilized and treated with various chemicals which contain enough of the minerals to be fine for the fish.

The minerals you should use for that is something like Kent Marine RO Right or Tropic Marine Re-Mineral Tropic (not available in the US for some reason)
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_AquariumP ... water.html
http://www.tmc-ltd.co.uk/aquarium/tropic-additives.asp
[Those where about the first pages I found, and in both cases, you need to scroll down a bit to find the products I'm talking of].

I use the Tropic Marin version - mainly because my local shop has it in stock [but I use a smaller amount than the tub says, I use a TDS meter to keep my TDS at 100ppm, which is about right for my fishes, I think].

Having said ALL that, this hardness map of the US says that you are most likely living in an area with medium hardness, so it shouldn't be necessary to add salts to your tank on a regular basis - unless of course you are also using some sort of filter to change the water conditions in your tank.

How long has the tank been running? If you have a newly set up tank, breathing difficulties could be caused by high nitrite levels in the water.

--
Mats

[RWC]

The shop tested my pH and nitrite levels, all seem to be fine. I do however have high ammonia which is confusing because I have nitrates. My tank has been set up for a month, but I put my filter into an established tank for a week prior. I added 6 fish to start and added about 2 fish per week since. I have a 29 gallon tank and only have 19 inches of fish in the tank so I hope overcrowding isn't causing high ammonia. I was doing weekly 20% water changes until now. Starting two days ago I've begun daily 30% water changes to remove ammonia and to get some of the salt out that the store told me to add. The reason all of this started was that I lost some fish from that initial batch one month ago.

[MatsP]

Ammonia is definitely a problem - and there's reasonably only one source of it: Your fish and the food for your fish.

Doing water changes to remove the ammonia is definitely a good thing.

Are you adding something else? Some products (ammo-lock comes to mind, but could even be the my imagination) show ammonia, but it's actually a compound that makes ammonia safe - it's just not so "safe" that the test-kits can't find it.

--
Mats