AQ salt with plants

[Lauren A]

Hi,

I had to start treating my betta fish in a heavily planted tank with soil last night.  She’s ok, suffered an injury but it was late and I didn’t want to move her to a hospital because I wasn’t sure if it warranted me to move her.  

I added some AQ salt to her tank with extra tannins.  I always use them but not salt.  

This tank is gorgeous.  Beautiful plants all growing so nicely.  I hate to move her but will the salt kill my plants?  I read on a blog on this site that at the tablespoon per a 5 gallon dose it should be fine, curious what you all think?  And for how long do you think the plants will be ok?  
 

It’s mostly Crypts, Rotala, Anubias, Buce, Sag Subulata, and Bolbitis - easy plants.  And lots of floaters.  Guppy grass, Anacharis, Water sprite.  I’m not as concerned about the floaters.  I have tons of extras.  It’s more my planted plants.  
 

Thanks for any help you have to offer!  She’s doing fine.  She’s a happy girl and it didn’t phase her and is not serious.  I’m just hoping to prevent infection and reduce some swelling.  Thanks!  

[lefty o]

light amount of salt wont hurt plants. heavy doses may.

[Lauren A]

On 2/19/2023 at 4:53 PM, lefty o said:

light amount of salt wont hurt plants. heavy doses may.

Excellent thank you.  It’s a pretty light dose and shouldn’t be for too long.  I appreciate your help.  I’m not going to worry over it.

Have a nice night and thank you very much!

[mynameisnobody]

I’ve lightly treated a planted aquarium with salt and although it didn’t kill the plants. I could tell that it hindered them a bit. Growth stopped, 1 of my crypts started melting back, and then everything eventually went back to normal. Just my experience. 

[Pepere]

Light dose, heavy dose…. Sort of subjective….

 

any concrete guidelines?

 

ie, how many tablespoons of salt per 10 gallons of water are plants ok with , ie, takes a hit in short term but recovers?   Ie how long can one keep it at that level?

 

I generally pull fish in to treatment tank and start them off with 3 tablespoons per 10 gallon tank and meds as appropriate.  I just did this with an American Flag Fish suffering from erosion of his tail fin.  Dosed him with Maracyn per package directions and 3 tablespoons salt in 10 gallons of water.  After the week I did a 50% water change and redosed salt to get to original dosing.

 

kept a very close eye on the tank he came out of and no sign of similar on any of the remaining fish.  He seems to be recovering, and I may start water changing out the salt this weekend coming up…

 

However if other fish in tank had started showing symptoms I would have started dosing with Maracyn there as well…. Heavily planted and curious as to salt guidelines…

[knee]

I've dosed 1tbsp/5g in my 40 breeder for 6 days.

Plants became stagnant but none died. They also looked sad, for the lack of a better term. 

They perked up when I did a 50% water change. So 1tbsp/10g won't affect them based on my experience only.

Please take this information with a grain of salt (no pun intended), as I'm only speaking on what happened to my tank.