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Hi!

Does anyone here know if a little bit of salt in the water would hurt aquatic plants? I add some salt to my betta water but i want to plant their tanks, i add 1/2 teaspoon of salt for every 1 gallon, will this hurt them?

What plant do you have?
I add salt to my 15G all the time, and nothing happened to the plant. Except recently when i stopped adding salt, my water wisteria started dying.

Hi,
Nearly every aquarium plant that we have in the
industry today comes from water that is well upstream
from any salt water source. Most of our plants are
now tank raised, and have some tollerance to salt but
for many more it is still a retardant to growth, or
even toxic.
There are some plants that are tollerant of "some"
salt in the water and even to brackish water.
Check out this site for brackish water plants:
http://www.azgardens.com/habitats_brackish.php

Unless you have mollies, or actual brackish water
fish, there is absolutely no need to add salt to
the water in this day and age. Adding Salt was,
at one time, considered a way to help prevent
Ich. Much the same as taking a vitamin once a day
is supposed to help you not catch a cold.
Salt accellerates the rate of production of the
protective mucus covering on fish. The thought
was that it would slough off the parasite before
it could take hold on the fish. With todays
knowledge of Ich and its cycle, and todays medications
salt is absolutely unnecessary in most freshwater
tanks.
And, with folks new to the hobby, they don't always
realize that the salt never evaporates, and they
keep adding salt with every top of thus gradually
increasing the amount of salt in the tank to sometimes
deadly porportions.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Totally agree , Frank.

I've never used salt in anything, but since I'm keeping bettas people have recommended the use of salt in the above mentioned proportions, I know that with stable temperatures and good water quality I should not have any problems with Ich, all my tanks are ich free so far, but betta bowls do not thrive in those privileges, they don't have a heater and they don't usually have filters (mine do), but in every betta breading page I've found they advice to add salt, not to only avoid Ich, but also fin rot, and velvet.

Anyway, I'm not up for experimenting with my plants, so no salt in the planted betta bowls, I'll stick with betta fix just in case and hope for the best.

i remember years ago i went to petco bought some clearance test kits for salt levels, got them for... incredible price of 59 CENTS!!!!!! they had a chart in there showing how much salt is ok for plants, and how much salt is ok with non-planted. i think according to their chart, they said with plants can tolerate 2 tablespoons of salt per gallon, which i think is a lot of salt...go to petco see if they still got those, they are purple.

Thanks but we don't have pet co here, i'll still look for a salt test, that's a good idea, never heard of them.