Re: Salt and plants

[Brown_D at pcfnotes1_wustl.edu]

Some not so authoritative thoughts re:  salting the discus tank.

The amount of salt mentioned would not move the specific gravity measurably
on either of the meters I use for my brackish tank.  I suspect all but the
most sensitive plants would be fine with a brief immersion in low salt.
Most of the plants I put into my brackish tank (maintained with Seachem's
Live Bearer Salt BTW) do just fine for a week to a month (often long enough
for me to go back to the store and say, wow, that one grew, let's get more
of it) before croaking.

The brackish tank literature suggests generally that fine-leaved or
otherwise very delicate leaved plants do worst; in my brief experience,
that's mostly correct, although I have some parrot feather that won't quite
die--the tips are always growing.  Swords, anubias, crinums, vals, sag,
java fern and moss, ludwigia have all done fine; hornwort, hygrophila,
wisteria, water sprite, and rotala indica take a long time to decide
whether to flourish or die; the first crypts I've put in are still deciding
whether to take off or croak, about 2 weeks after being planted; egeria was
one of the few that just died, fast.

Hope that helps.

Diane Brown
brown_d at kids_wustl.edu
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