might refer to as a tonic and a wise quantity IMHO. That is more to prevent illnesses and, with faithful partial water changes, not necessary in the eyes of many experienced aquarists. I have seen articles lately in both TFH and the UK's Practical Fishkeeping which take aquarists to task for using sodium chloride in aquariums, including guppy tanks, when it isn't really needed. There are medical applications that are certainly appropriate though.
Many shops constantly add salt. I think they very correctly fear nitrite poisoning in crowded aquariums and know that an addition of salt will prevent (or postpone) such a problem.
I'm surprised we haven't marked salt related threads in Immediate Help.
GL's search engine didn't give much help. Googling Guppylog and salt gave a couple of hits.
If you Google {Guppylog sodium chloride} you will get dozens of hits.
A preventative (prophylactic) level of salt could be as much as 1-2 teaspoons per REAL gallon of water in a tank. That could also be used against velvet. A 10-gallon aquarium probably holds a little over 7 gallons since they are less than ten gallons to start with. We then add gravel, ornaments and accessories and leave a little space at the surface.
That 1-2 teaspoons/gallon might be best applied in a hospital tank. That gives a .1-.2% Solution according to Burgess, Bailey & Excell's A-Z of Tropical Fish Diseases and Health Problems. (1998 Howell Book House)
Treating for a bacterial infection might even see that raised to a 1% solution. That is an incredible 10 grams per liter or roughly 10 teaspoons per gallon! Since you will trash the plants and maybe the nitrogen cycle, that definitely should be in a hospital tank. It is very important that the salt be mixed on the side - dissolved in a little aquarium water - and added gradually, maybe by 10ths or 5ths over the course of a day, so that the guppies do not go into osmotic shock. Back off and dilute a little with regular water, if the fish show distress.
Types of useful salt include almost all aquarium, marine aquarium, livestock feed and cooking salts, EXCEPT for table salts which (as Maggie mentions) have unhealthy additives (as far as the fish are concerned) which enable it to flow freely. Those additives include silicates which can even coat gills and (partially or completely) suffocate fish. Somewhere in GL Scott Lockwood has a good discussion on this and I can't find that (2003? 2004?) discourse.
By the way, those teaspoons are of a fine granular salt. I usually use a floating hydrometer (and just broke my last one) because the size of the salt crystal can significantly effect the salinity of the water per teaspoon added.
For further selected readings from GL on Sodium Chloride and guppies:.
Mollies, Salt and Asian Imports
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2004/1/31/5655/54195
Adding salt for softener?
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2004/3/13/72453/8366
Water Softner (rainsoft) with Reverse Osmoesis
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2005/3/1/83153/42291
4 or more new fry (R.O.water and minerals)
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2005/3/13/185836/677
Spinal Problems
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2005/1/14/165018/276
I'm losing a guppy a day
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2004/12/20/1366/5618
Two more questions.. (pH)
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2005/2/9/151353/8803
Hope those are of some use.
All the best!
unc;e
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