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When it says for some of the fish to add a small amount of salt to the water, (Guppies for example) How much salt is that?

Guppies and many other livebearers live in fresh to brackish water. Typically, people add salt to their aquaria as a preventive measure against parasites and to aid osmotic regulation. Further benefits include the ease of stress, reducing osmotic pressure, inhibition of nitrite uptake, promoting the slime coat, and helping in healing wounds. The salt recommended should be free of additives such as iodine.

If you are just cycling your tank, I would avoid adding salt as it may disturb the nascent bacteria colonies. I would also hold off on adding salt until you know your water values such as pH, GH, KH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate and the salinity of your water.

A hygrometer will have scales for both salinity and for specific gravity.

Salt does not evaporate, it can only be removed by water changes and plants will not survive higher concentrations. The reason is similar to what we can observe with fish that cannot survive higher salt concentrations. Osmosis is the reason. Freshwater naturally moves from an environment with a low salt concentration, (inside the plant or animal) to one with a higher salt concentration (the water).

The lethal point for plants is reached at about 1000 mg/l of salt. One teaspoon of salt equals approx. 5500 mg.

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Salt is not required and hasn't really been proven to do many of the things it's believed to do. It works much better as a treatment after they get an illness than a preventative. Guppies and livebearers will handle salt well but definitely don't need it to be healthy. Some fish especially bottom feeders highly dislike salt so if you are going to add it take into account all the fish in the tank not just 1 species.

I know people that use 1 tea spoon of salt with 20 Litres of water in their tanks. They add the salt when they're doing water changes, especially in Livebearers tanks.



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