The Puffer Forum

Is aqaurium salt recomended for dp's. Different people say different things. Some say only certain species of fish should have it. Others say that it is natural for every tropical/fresh water area due to evaporation from oceans near by. So aqaurium salt or not?

Thanks pp but that was very vauge. At the end he basically said for some kinds of fish all the time others only if they are sick. Well which is a dp?

I believe that aquarium salt is used for some medication situations; however not necessary or not commonplace to be used for puffers (or any other type of fish) unless you have reason to use it, as specified within the article... Depends on your water, and situation - not on the DP.

Ok. Just curious. Thats a somewhat controversal topic. I know cichlids, especially african cichlids are suppose to have it all the time. I put a special african salt mix in my cichlid tank. I will leave it out of the puffer tank.

I use table salt for my puffs. One time I've used this blue salt that had made my whole tank blue

but yeah I do use salt in my tanks

PP, please stop!

There is no sound physiologic reason for using salt routinely in any tank of fish other than brackish water fish, and those shoulnd have marine mix added, not table salt.

As Pufferpunk pointed out earlier, for certain infections (such as FW ich) and certain condirions (such as nitrite toxicity), table salt may be used short-term. This is not at all routine use.

IMHO and IME, routine use of table salt is more likely to be harmful for most FW fish than helpful. That use is likely the most common and the most absurd aquarium myth.

Pufferpunk wrote:PP, please stop!

Ok I will

Miller535 wrote:Ok. Just curious. Thats a somewhat controversal topic. I know cichlids, especially african cichlids are suppose to have it all the time. I put a special african salt mix in my cichlid tank. I will leave it out of the puffer tank.

Cichlids require a salt that is different from general aquarium salt and that salt geared at the region that the specific cichilid is from, mainly for the mineral content.

Yeah, it's not really "salt" at all. It's more of a water hardener.

sorry pufferpunk. Saw someone else call you that and thought it was a nick name. didnt mean anything by it

LOL, I was talking to PolishPuff, I call him PP too.

"Salt: any of a class of compounds formed by the replacement of one or more hydrogen atoms of an acid with elements or groups, which are composed of anions and cations, and which usually ionize in solution; a product formed by the neutralization of an acid by a base." Dictionary.com

Table salt is a salt, specifically sodium chloride (NaCl), plus some trace additives.

Marine mix is a large number of salts and some
other compounds in a defined mixture.

Rift lake salts are mixtures of salts which may or may not be specific to individual Rift lakes.

If you just say "salt" in a thread such as this, you may be confusing rather than clarifying.

DPs are FW fish. They do not need any type of salt addition.

HTH