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Hi there,
I was asked to ask on here if it would be okay to add aquarium salt for tetras to help with the stress levels with nitrite? I'm having a bit of ammonia trouble in the tank and have used amquel to help lower the levels down with tetras in (cardinals, lemon) and was hoping that it would not effect the other levels since I had to lower the ammonia with amquel.. it neutralizes the ammonia is what the bottle says and it shouldn't affect the other levels correct? Plus I'm adding the live bacteria once a week to the tank to help it.

Did you cycle your tank? How big of a tank is it? Do you have test kits? If so, what are your parameters?

-Josh

I'm working on cycling it now.. 10g, I have test kits for ph, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate..all liquid kits..ammonia levels are running high 3 even more a bit, so I've had to use amquel to lower it a little bit to help the fish,..nitrites are now going to 0-0.25 so I'm hoping that I'm at the point where the ammonia is spiking and forming nitrites?

Before adding salt, you have to look at the fish's natural habitat. Tetras come from the Amazonian basin, almost all of which is very soft and acidic waters. Almost no mineral content whatsoever, so these fishes cannot handle salt. In particular, their kidney's become very overworked trying to remove the salt from their systems.

Most lemon tetras are pretty hardy (they actually come from waters that do have some mineral content), but the cardinals are native to very, very soft water and will not take to salt very well at all. A great deal of cardinals are wild caught, too, so they may not have ever been exposed to mineral-rich water.

Sounds to me like the most important thing to do is get the tank cycled. Whenever the pollution levels get too high, do a water change. So long as you match the temperature of the replacement water with the tank water (and the replacement water's pH and hardness are pretty close, too) it is safe to do almost as large a water change as you want. The levels of the bacteria will continue to increase so long as the rate of ammonia production are greater than the rate of ammonia consumption by the bacteria.

Concurring with much of the above, I have the following to add.

Freshwater fishes are divided into two principal groups from the standpoint of osmoregulation. There are the primary freshwater fishes, whose distant ancestors evolved in freshwater and never adapted to anything else, and the secondary freshwater fishes, that had marine ancestors but which moved into freshwater later in their evolutionary history.

Cichlids are among the classic examples of secondary freshwater fishes. They share an evolutionary ancestor with the marine Damselfishes of the Family Pomacentridae, indeed there are very few anatomical differences between the two (details of the eye socket and articulation of the pharyngeal bones separate these two Families), and they had, in the not too distant past (say 50 to 100 million years ago) a common marine ancestor. As a consequence, they still retain some capacity to operate with salt present in the water, though they cannot survive fully marine strength salt water as they have adapted to fresh water.

Characins are primary freshwater fishes. Their ancestors have been in freshwater for over 300 million years (in fact, their lineage as freshwater fishes may go back all the way to the Devonian era, 410 million years ago) and consequently, they have nver evolved the capacity to operate in water containing salt. Put any primary freshwater fish in water containing salt, and it will suffer badly. Therefore I warn STRONGLY against putting Characins, Carps or Catfishes (with the exception of the brackish catfishes of the Family Ariidae) in water containing salt. Cardinal Tetras in particular, as noted above, will suffer badly.

Oh, almost forgot (edit time). If you're looking for something that will assist your nitrogen cycle management, particularly at this critical time, try a couple of sprigs of Hornwort in the aquarium. That will help manage your nitrogen cycle and make the water conditions less stressful for the fishes while the filter matures properly.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002