RE: Salt, Ich, and Quarantine

[Mike Wickham <mewickham at compuserve_com>]

Kevin,

> Has anyone had any experience treating planted tanks with salt on a short
> term basis for "medication purposes"?  If so, how much, how long & how
did > the plants fair through the process?

I don't know if this helps, but in my days as a retailer with hundreds of
aquariums, we normally kept 2 tsps. of salt per gallon in our tanks as a
tonic. I never noticed it to bother any plant species. Note, however, that
2 tsps./gal. can be useful as a preventative, but it is not nearly enough
salt to act as a medication by itself-- and especially for ich. We had ich
plenty of times in tanks with 2 tsps. of salt per gallon. If I recall
correctly 2 tsps./gal is roughly 3 ppt.

If you want to treat ich in a planted tank, use a straight malachite green
ich medication. It won't hurt the plants at all. The formalin/malachite
green combos are much rougher on some plant species.

Mike Wickham