Copper pipe

[j.w]

@Bill Baty

 

[Lisak1]

've put salt in my pond for almost twenty years and the plants and fish look vigorous and happy. I think the lack of salt is not good for the fish.

And I've never added salt to my pond in 7 years and my plants and fish ALSO look vigorous and happy. Again - I'm not trying to argue with you and the success you've had, just wanting to keep the topic of "should I salt my pond" balanced for others who may read this in the future. I think this is where the phrase "correlation does not equal causation" comes into play. My mom will frequently say "well, we did A, B and C when you were kids and you turned out fine!" In her mind that means driving around with no seatbelts, no infant car seats, and smoking while your kids are in the car is perfectly safe. I remind her that "when we know better, we do better". Science advances, thought processes change, we learn from experience. Know better - do better.

I'm not saying salt isn't useful in fish care - it certainly can be. But there's lots of research that shows that freshwater fish do not benefit from constant exposure to salt. Many of the articles that you read say pond fish will "tolerate" low levels of salt. And many recommend getting the salt out of the pond after you have treated for parasites or bacteria.

Here are a few interesting points from an article that is mainly in favor of using salt in a pond:

"Salt is an irritant to the skin of the koi. As a reaction to the irritant the koi will grow additional slime coat."

So using salt to increase the slime coat can be helpful, but that can be done with a salt dip as needed - not necessary to salt the whole pond. The idea of constantly being in an environment that is basically irritating to your skin doesn't sound pleasant to me, though.

"Salt definitely has it's time and place in koi keeping. It can be very useful in treating stressed, sick and new koi and it can also be great at controlling parasites. However it is NOT a good idea to leave salt in your koi pond all year long. There are no real health concerns from long term salt use in a koi pond, but the problem occurs with parasites. If salt is used year round, parasites can build up a resistance to salt and you end up with these super bugs. Then you will have a much harder time later trying to kill off parasites and even more drastic measures have to be taken".

This reminds me of our overuse of antibiotics which is leading to the creation of superbugs that can't be touched by any medicine that we currently have. Things that used to be easy to treat are becoming life-threatening as a result.

And I don't necessarily agree with the statement "there are no real health concerns" - for the following reason:

"Salt will never dissipate. If the water level drops from evaporation, the salt will only become more concentrated. The only way to remove salt is to drain water from the koi pond and replace with new water."

So add salt to your pond and you now have to be concerned with evaporation leading to high salinity which IS a health concern for fish. Now you are committed to regular water changes which have also proven to be stressful for fish - but that's another subject!

This is also worth considering:

"Salt also has uses in parasite control. However this will require much higher doses of salt. Usually in the neighborhood of .5% to .6% salt. This is around 5 pounds per 100 gallons of water. Now that's a lot of salt! You may find some literature out there that says .3% salt will kill parasites, but check the date on that information. 10 years ago .3% salt did kill parasites, however due to its heavy use by breeders, many strains of parasites have developed a resistance to salt. So now much higher levels of salt must be used. I am sure 10 years from now salt will be completely useless at killing parasites, but for now .6% for around 2 weeks will kill many types of parasites. Salt however will not kill flukes, anchor worms or lice."

You could never add enough salt to your pond to medicate your fish and not kill your plants at the same time. Dead plants aren't helpful in a pond. Again - a salt dip or a hospital tank makes way more sense for treating sick fish than does salting your whole pond.

In fact the author goes on to say:

"Salt will kill most plants. You will need to remove any potted or floating plants before adding salt."

I guess that would work if your plants are all potted and easy to remove. But if you have naturalized your plants or you're using a constructed wetland filter on your pond, salt in the pond will put an end to that.

Again - not trying to tell anyone else what they should do with their pond. Just adding to the conversation with a different perspective. The whole topic of salt in the garden pond has seen a bit of an uptick here of late, which is interesting!

Here's the article I pulled quotes from if anyone is interested:

http://www.simikoi.com/Salt-in-Koi-Ponds/Salt-in-Koi-Ponds-p-358.html

 

[sissy]

Had the same happen to my fridge like addy ,only a year old and not sure how long it was leaking and had lots of pinholes in it .Lucky insurance covered it since it was a hidden leak .I have talked to people and heard them tell me that a pond store told them they needed a 20 lb bag of salt in a 1000 gallon pond and the fish suffered and the plants died .They bought the bag of salt from a well known pond store here .I was surprised when they came to my little pond group at the garden center and told us this .

 

[Lisak1]

I did a fast google search for "how much salt to add to a garden pond and found the following “advice”:

2.5 cups per 100 gallons
1.25 cups per 100 gallons
1-3 pounds per 100 gallons
1/2 gallon per 550 gallons
Minimum one pound to maximum 2.5 pounds per 100 gallons

Pretty much seems like no one really knows. If this was a recipe, the results would be a disaster.

 

[Mmathis]

I did a fast google search for "how much salt to add to a garden pond and found the following “advice”:

2.5 cups per 100 gallons
1.25 cups per 100 gallons
1-3 pounds per 100 gallons
1/2 gallon per 550 gallons
Minimum one pound to maximum 2.5 pounds per 100 gallons

Pretty much seems like no one really knows. If this was a recipe, the results would be a disaster.

Oh my!

 

[sissy]

What gets me a lot of this info on salt comes from pond experts or so they call themselves .Not sure how old school they are .My dad never put salt in his pond .I will not mention names but 1 is in NC and is famous .I guess maybe they just want to sell you more stuff to solve the problem they caused .It is a circle .Then they get to sell you more fish