You’re very welcome! Happy to hear the preventative method is working out for you. 🙂

Thanks for the very thorough reply Christina! I decided to use salt as a preventative and it is working out well. Thanks again for your time in replying to me!

Hi Chantal,

If your goldfish has ich, there’s a high chance your other fish will get it too – ich is very contagious! Unless you have fish sensitive to aquarium salt, the salt itself shouldn’t harm any of your tropicals.

Otherwise, if you did want to try treating your goldfish with salt, you could move either your tropicals or goldfish to another tank and treat the aquariums separately.

Hi Jessica,

Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with raising catfish as I’ve never had catfish in any of my aquariums. However, after doing a bit of research, I found that some people recommend using half the regular dose of aquarium salt for these type of fish. Maybe you can try that – or less if it makes you nervous.

Goldfish don’t necessarily need aquarium salt on a regular basis, so you can do without the salt and your fish should be fine. I only add salt when my goldfish are stressed or sick, so it might help to keep sick goldfish in a hospital tank and treat that hospital tank with aquarium salt and the appropriate medication – that way your catfish aren’t under any unnecessary stress.

Hope that helps!

Hi Malik,

It looks like you might have an overcrowding problem. Two fancy goldfish will need a 30-gallon tank at the very minimum – goldfish contribute a ton to ammonia and ammonia buildup is never good for fish. What kind of filtration system are you using? Have you tested the water for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate?

Hopefully you were able to solve the problem. If not, I suggest moving your goldfish to a larger tank and keeping the 10 gallon for all of your tropical fish. That way, any sick goldfish will have a lot more room and cleaner water to recover. Since the new tank won’t be cycled, you’ll want to pay very close attention to those water parameters – read this article on water testing if you need help. Make sure ammonia and nitrite don’t get too high – both should be at or near 0ppm. If those levels start to rise, change 25%-40% of the water depending on how much ammonia and nitrite in the water.

Also, you should never put in the tank table salt designed for kitchen use. Instead, always go for non-iodized rock salt, kosher salt, or freshwater aquarium salt formulated for fish.

Hi Malik,

Whether or not to use aquarium salt is completely up to you. I prefer to add a bit of salt whenever my goldfish seem sick or stressed, but that doesn’t mean you have to use aquarium salt in your own tank.

If you need help on how to add salt to your aquarium, see my salt treatment guide here.

Glad you found the article helpful, Freddy!

I do agree with you. I actually changed my salt treatment routine about 5 years ago. I used to put in a little aquarium salt after every water change. Now I only treat the tank with salt if my goldfish are stressed (after a move for example) or when I suspect my goldfish might be sick. I did notice the salt treatments seem more effective when used this way – and if you’re raising goldfish in a healthy environment and taking the necessary safety precautions (like quarantining new fish before placing them in the main tank), it’s very unlikely that your goldfish will get sick anyway. So you may not need that extra preventative step of using aquarium salt regularly.

But really, it’s completely your choice – there’s no right or wrong method. If later on you decide that you prefer using aquarium salt on a regular basis, that’s completely fine. 🙂 I think it’s important to know the reasons behind a particular method so you can always make an educated decision.

Sorry for the confusion! I talk about how much aquarium salt to use in your tank here, depending on your salt treatment preference (whether you want to use salt as a preventative against infections or only when your goldfish are sick).

Let me know if you need anything else!

Hi Ron,

You can determine how much aquarium salt your tank needs in the aquarium salt treatment guide here. Thanks for reading!