How much salt do you need to keep your goldfish alive and paddling?

It depends on what you’re using the salt for. If you want to prevent goldfish diseases, you won’t need much of it. But if you’re treating goldfish parasites, you might consider a salt bath.

Don’t worry if this all sounds confusing. We’ll walk through it, step by step.

First, we’ll compare different methods on how to use aquarium salt. Then we’ll determine the aquarium salt treatment that’s right for your tank.

Let’s dive in.

Aquarium Salt Treatment #1: Keep Your Tank Salted at All Times

Maintaining a low level of salt in your tank not only treats ugly goldfish diseases.

It prevents them.

An aquarium salt treatment can also be used regularly to reduce goldfish stress and stimulate slime coat production. Plus, salt can kill off parasites harmful to goldfish, nipping one problem in the bud!

How to Use Aquarium Salt Regularly

You don’t need a lot of salt for it to be effective. In fact, I recommend using very little aquarium salt as a preventative.

Let’s take a look at how to use aquarium salt, whether or not you’re treating infections.

• When preventing goldfish diseases: Add ½ teaspoon (or less!) for every gallon (about 4 liters) in your aquarium. After a partial water change, treat the amount of water you took out of the tank.
• When reducing stress or treating parasites: Add 1 tablespoon (3 teaspoons) for every 5 gallons (19 liters) of aquarium water. If you’re performing a partial water change, only add the correct amount of salt to water taken out.

The higher the dosage, the more concentrated the salt.

When you’re dealing with parasites, you’ll want salt concentrations to be slightly higher than your routine salt treatments. The higher concentration makes the aquarium salt treatment more effective.

This means that killing off icky parasites will be much easier. And at the same time, you’re not stressing out your poor goldfish with the increased salt concentration.

But never add salt when topping off the goldfish tank (replacing evaporated water).

Salt doesn’t evaporate, so you’d be adding more salt than your goldfish need. Too much of an aquarium salt treatment can be very stressful. Only add salt with every water change (and only for the amount of water you took out).

But watch out! This type of treatment does have its drawbacks.

Pitfalls of a Routine Aquarium Salt Treatment

While adding salt regularly can help prevent goldfish diseases, you might run into a few problems.

• Using salt as a preventative can make parasites resistant to salt treatments. So if your goldfish get sick, you may have to stick to medications instead.
• By adding salt all of the time, your goldfish are constantly producing extra slime. This can be as uncomfortable as wearing an extra jacket during the winter season, even if you’re guarding against cold. Salt also acts as an irritant (that’s how it thickens the slime coat!).
• Salt and aquatic plants don’t mix. And some plants simply don’t tolerate salt well. Even so, most plants should do fine with a little bit of aquarium salt.
• A regular dosage can reverse the effects of zeolite (filter media that removes ammonia). Sure, salt recharges zeolite (but only by making it release all of that pent-up ammonia it had absorbed). So if you’re using zeolite in your filter, remove it before an aquarium salt treatment.

With so many disadvantages, should you even add salt regularly?

If you’re maintaining healthy conditions in your aquarium, your goldfish aren’t likely to get sick in the first place. So you wouldn’t really need to use salt as a preventative.

But it’s up to you. This type of aquarium salt treatment might be useful if you’re keeping goldfish in uncomfortable conditions temporarily. It will help prevent infections until you can move your goldfish to their primary home.

If you prefer only to use salt when your goldfish are sick, there’s a better method. It’s called the salt dip.

Aquarium Salt Treatment #2: Only Treat Your Tank When Needed

One school of thought is that salt doesn’t belong in tanks at all times.

Instead, many aquarists like to use salt only to treat stress and parasites – when there are symptoms. Aquarium salt can also be used in emergency situations, when nitrite levels are at their peak. And it’s particularly effective in quarantine and hospital tanks.

You can either add salt directly into the aquarium (1 tablespoon or 3 teaspoons per 5 gallons) or perform a salt dip (a short-term salt bath).

Below, we’ll talk about the latter – how to give your goldfish a salt bath. But first, you’ll want to set up a hospital or quarantine tank your goldfish will stay in until you’ve eradicated all parasites in the main aquarium.

Already have a quarantine tank up and running? Great! Let’s move on to the next step…

How to Use Aquarium Salt in a Salt Dip to Treat Infections

Doing a salt dip is actually pretty easy (even though the very idea may be a bit scary!).

By exposing your goldfish to salt temporarily, you can quickly eradicate parasites. And all you need is a 5-gallon bucket or tank with a working airstone (make sure to attach it to the appropriate air pump), some aquarium water, and the salt of course!

How to use aquarium salt in a salt dip? Let’s walk through the steps.

1. Fill a bucket with aquarium water (remember how many gallons that bucket can hold). Make sure it has the same temperature and pH as your tank water. You don’t want to shock your goldfish!
2. Mix the salt solution. Pour in 30 teaspoons of non-iodized salt for every gallon (4 liters) of water (source). Stir the solution until the salt is dissolved.
3. Gently scoop your goldfish into the aquarium salt treatment. Wait five minutes, observing how your goldfish react to the water. If your goldfish act a bit odd, that’s normal. But if they roll over or rest to the side and can’t right themselves, return them to the quarantine tank (you may have to use the former salt treatment method or medicate instead). If all is well and your goldfish continue to swim upright, keep up treatment for 55 minutes more or up to a total of 2 hours (source).
4. Move your goldfish to a quarantine tank. This tank should have the same temperature and pH levels as the aquarium salt treatment. Ideally, you’ll want to use a fully-cycled 20-gallon aquarium (for one or two goldfish). But for a single goldfish, a 10-gallon quarantine tank may work as well.
5. Treat the primary aquarium to get rid of any remaining parasites. You can use salt or a medication for this. Once you’re sure that you’ve killed off all parasites (this will depend on the parasite life cycle), you can re-introduce (acclimate) your goldfish to their now parasite-free environment.

A salt dip can head off potentially nasty infections, deteriorating slime coats, painful wounds, and a bulk of other problems. But because salt doesn’t evaporate, you should remove the aquarium salt treatment with a series of water changes once you’ve killed the parasites.

One Disadvantage of a Salt Dip: It Can Be Stressful!

Luckily, your goldfish won’t stay in the salt solution for very long. And by the time you’re done with treatment, your goldfish should be parasite free!

But during the aquarium salt treatment, keep an eye on your goldfish.

If your goldfish aren’t responsive, give them a soft pat to get them moving. If even that doesn’t work, remove your fish from the aquarium salt treatment right away. Some goldfish diseases can take a toll on fish – and your goldfish might be too weak for the salt dip.

Of course, you’ll still need to treat the entire aquarium after the salt dip. So keep your goldfish in a quarantine tank until you’ve exterminated every last parasite.

Which Method Is More Effective?

You’ve learned how to use aquarium salt. But which aquarium salt treatment is your best bet?

Choose the option that makes the most sense to you.

Many goldfish hobbyists recommend using a salt dip when necessary, but adding salt to your aquarium regularly can reduce stress when goldfish are already in an uncomfortable environment.

But while salt can be a good preventative, you also want the immune system to keep running strong (and regularly putting salt in the tank can make parasites more immune to the salt, especially if you don’t change concentrations).

Regardless of which choice you make, stay away from salts with additives!

The extra stuff in table salt can be harmful. Special aquarium salt (designed for freshwater fish), non-iodized rock salt, or kosher salt is generally what you will want to work with.

Anything else might endanger your aquatic friends – and that’s the opposite of what you want an aquarium salt treatment to do.

Your Turn: How Do You Use Aquarium Salt?

What to do you think? Should you add salt regularly or only when you need it? What’s your preferred method of treatment?

Post your thoughts in the comment section below!

The post How to Use Aquarium Salt: An Aquarium Salt Treatment Guide appeared first on Complete Goldfish Care.

“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.”

You might know this quote from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A man is adrift on the ocean, water as far as the eye can see and yet dying of thirst because people can’t drink salt water.

Tough break.

But for goldfish, freshwater aquarium salt (when used effectively) can provide many benefits. Too much, of course, and you’ll do more harm than good – just like with any substance that is overdosed.

Already know the benefits? Skip to the aquarium salt treatment guide to determine how much salt to put into your aquarium

But if you’re new to salt treatments, the very concept might sound ridiculous. Why on earth would you add aquarium salt? After all, goldfish are freshwater fish.

Why Salt Is Good for Goldfish (Not So Much for Humans)

Actually, adding salt to a freshwater tank isn’t too unheard of. Not at all.

You might already know that salt reduces stress. You’ve probably heard that salt treats parasites, even. But one benefit that isn’t often talked about is osmoregulation.

The cells in your goldfish contain a specific salinity (or salt and water balance). At every moment, small traces of salt trickles back into the water from your goldfish’s body. To keep up with this, your goldfish have to constantly reabsorb small amounts of salt from the environment.

Luckily, aquarium water naturally provides some salt – though the amount of salt in a freshwater aquarium is much smaller than the salt density in a saltwater aquarium. And rightly so, because too much salt could seriously hurt – even kill – your goldfish!

But by adding a small amount of freshwater aquarium salt during stress, you’re boosting the salinity in your aquarium just enough to make things easier for your goldfish. This can have all sorts of benefits.

• Freshwater aquarium salt reduces stress. Some goldfish diseases can stop the gills from functioning properly. If your goldfish don’t absorb enough electrolytes from the water (because they’re under stress), they could go into an osmotic shock. Salt replenishes much-needed electrolytes, helping your goldfish maintain a healthy flow of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
• Aquarium salt helps goldfish recover faster from infections. When small amounts of aquarium salt are added, your goldfish don’t have to work as hard (or absorb as much water) to maintain the salt density in their bodies. Your goldfish actually save more energy to fight off diseases and heal painful scrapes – very much like how rest helps you and me recover from nasty colds.
• Aquarium salt kills off parasites. Freshwater aquarium salt disrupts the salt/water balance in the cells of harmful organisms, dehydrating them until they let go of your goldfish and eventually die off. For this reason, salt baths are particularly effective treatments for parasite infections.
• Freshwater aquarium salt prevents nitrite poisoning. If your filter suddenly stops working or you’ve just set up a new tank (that isn’t fully cycled), nitrite levels may spike – and nitrite poisoning can be deadly! Chloride ions in aquarium salt reduce nitrite absorption, preventing nitrite poisoning when nitrite levels are high.

Some invertebrates (like snails) and plants are very sensitive to salt. And if your aquarium uses zeolite to cut down on ammonia, effects may be reversed during a salt treatment. Always remove sensitive invertebrates and zeolite before adding any type of salt.

Freshwater aquarium salt can be used as a preventative to help keep your goldfish healthy or as a treatment to cure common goldfish diseases (especially when parasites are to blame).

But what type of salt should you use? Let’s look at your options.

Keeping Salt Goldfish Friendly: 3 Types of Freshwater Aquarium Salt

Some salt (like table salt) can be bad news for goldfish. Luckily, you’re not just limited to table salt.

Adding salt regularly? Aquarium salt is a good choice. But if you want to keep your options open, rock and kosher salt are healthy alternatives.

• Freshwater aquarium salt is quite different from the salt you keep in your kitchen cabinet. Created from evaporated sea water, this salt contains no harmful additives like table salt and is specifically made for freshwater aquariums. Plus, you can buy it from any pet shop where fish are sold.
• Non-iodized rock salt and kosher salt are made up of just sodium chloride (unlike table salt that can contain iodine and calcium silicate). No extra ingredients are added, making these types of salt great for goldfish aquariums.

When introducing salt to the aquarium, never use table salt that contains additives. Toxic additives and spices in table salt can be deadly to goldfish.

Aquarium salt is a powerful tool against stress and parasite infections. But don’t overdo it!

Like all freshwater fish, goldfish can only take so much salt before it becomes harmful. When performing a salt treatment, keep an eye out for signs of stress. Reduce treatment or stop treatment altogether if your goldfish seem agitated.

Do You Treat Your Aquarium with Salt?

What type of salt do you use? Do you regularly add freshwater aquarium salt as a preventative or only as a treatment when you notice signs of stress?

Add your suggestions to the comment field below!

The post Should You Add Freshwater Aquarium Salt to a Goldfish Tank? appeared first on Complete Goldfish Care.