Will Salt Kill My Plants?

musapan

I've heard conflicting things.

I have a 20g tetra tank that is, obviously, planted. And unfortunately, last night I noticed a couple of ich spots on one of my long-finned black skirts. *sigh* I raised the temp on my tank, and now I want to grab some salt to throw in there to take care of the ich... But I love my live plants, and I don't want to see any of them die.
Now, I have heard that people who are just treating their tank with salt and not intending to continue adding salt after the ich is gone have had no problem with their plants. Is this true?
I've also heard that most shrimp are okay with salt... I have five ghost shrimp, will the salt effect them at all?

musapan

Edit: The plants I have are:
2 Red Ludwigia
2 Moneywort
1 Anacharis
1 Scarlet Temple
2 Java Fern
1 Water Wisteria

I can't seem to edit my first post. ><

Bacchus

i thought at first that it was very bad to use with plants, but then i looked into it some more and found some people saying it was ok....so now i am interested in finding out the answer too

musapan

Could you please elaborate? ^_^ As I stated before, I've heard many accounts of salt being okay with freshwater plants so long as it's not permanent in your water. I'm trying to make sure if this is true or not, so I need some information/testimonies from people who have tried it/have experience with it. And salt seems like the most natural way to get rid of ich... Most ich medications would also kill my plants and my shrimp.

Bacchus

i just edited my post because i did a complete 180 after reading a bit more. i spoke too soon... i always avoided it, myself, but maybe i didnt need to?

Austin

I think it would be alright temporarily but they will not appreciate it. Don't do it yet though wait for some more people who know more...

redchigh

I'm pretty sure it won't hurt your plants in small amounts...

but here is what I would do.


Find a clean bucket, fill it with aquarium water, and, optimally, place it under a CFL or a place with indirect sunlight.

Then treat the fish in the plant-less tank.
Ich is a parasite (duh) but it will not survive more than a few days without a host in the free-swimming stage. (assuming the temperature is good enough for the plants- over 75 would be best to make sure the cycle speeds up and the parasites die without a host.)
Treat the ich in the main tank with salt, it will likely take over a week for all the parasites to be for sure dead. (I've heard that ich will appear to be spreading with treatment, so don't panic if it does. finish the treatment and it should begin to clear up again)

Then after a couple w/c's, and the fish are cured, you can replace your plants.


Shrimp can't catch the parasite, so you could, theoretically, place the shrimp in the bucket...
(This would all be much easier if you had a quarantine tank to just treat the fish in and leave the tank salt-free. Just make sure you treat all the fish as a precaution)

Austin

I'm not sure you'd wanna do that with crypts and such though.

Angel079

Based of my last exp where I carried ich into my tank thanks to new plants I'd strongly suggest to treat the whole tank, fish, inverts, plants the whole deal. Now I'd be careful with some as sensitive as Tetra's to use salt; same for shrimp (shrimp def won't tolerate it). Dial up the Temp bit by bit as high as the fish you have can take it and buy some ich meds at the store to be safe. Most of them (read label here carefully!!!!) will suggest for Tetra's to use at half the dose. Then treat up until you see no more white spots then do 5 add days after that; then do a good large water exchange with a very good grvale vac and you should be all set. Good luck!

Mikaila31

Plants don't like salt I have been told. My use of softened water(which contains salt in small amounts) has seemed to have negative effects on my plants and I have switched to unsoftened water and Mg and Ca fertilizer dosing. Although, things were great for about a year using softened water, then one week something happened. Don't ask me what cuz IDK. I had a TON of stargrass in that tank and it was growing like crazy then almost all died within a week. A few stems have stayed alive just barely for almost 6 months. Now its back to taking over since I started using the straight well water.

When I had ich in one of my planted tanks. I moved out all the fish and treated them separately for 2 weeks. During this time the planted tank sat fishless and my cherry shrimp population exploded.