Salt Bath's are a very useful, holistic method to cure illness in sick fish. It works well on parasites, ulcers, fin rot and some other fungal and bacterial infections. There are times when stronger meds are needed such as anti fungals and antibiotics. Salt baths are also not good for all fish. It will burn the skin of scaleless fish, but our betta's have scales and are rather salt tolerant.
To administer a salt bath
Mix 1 teaspoon aquarium salt with 1 gallon of treated water (not tank water), make sure all of the salt is dissolved. You can then poor the gallon into smaller containers if you are treating multiple fish. The salt bath should be the same temperature as your tank, so your fish does not get shock form temperature difference as well as salt.
Scoop your fish into the salt bath and leave them in 5 minutes, unless the fish goes unconscious (rolls over on side and gill movement slows).
After the 5 minute period mix tank water into the bath to get 2/3 tank water, 1/3 bath. Leave them there for 10-15 minutes, ten return them to the tank.
You can do this safely 5 times a day for very sick fish. If you catch an illness early 1 treatment is often enough. Fin rot is a prime example here. at the first sign of rot, give the salt bath and add a small dose of bettafix to the tank as a booster and it is usually enough.
If disease has gone on a while the salt bath is not enough, but is always my starting point. It is far less stressful on fish than stronger medications. If a fish does not show improvement after 2 days worth of baths then it is time to look to stronger medication. If they look worse after the bath stronger meds are also needed. It is not a cure all but is a great starting and often ending point for treating your sick fish.
Do not give salt bath's to any scaleless fish such as catfish and loaches, as well as snails, snails really hate salt.
The reason I prefer holistic approaches first is because the more stronger meds are used, the more resistant the parasites, bacteria, fungus etc. become to them.
I remember a day when maracyn was the end all cure all for anything bacterial, now it only treats mild to medium cases and ampicillin is required for heavy cases. Some day maracyn will be useless and ampicillin will be the mild to mid range do to bacterial eveolution that makes it resistant.
I have always used salt baths and I always add Aquarium Salt to my tanks(a little less then recommended). One thing to note is when giving a salt bath you have to sit there with the Betta and watch it. Some Betta's do not like the salt and will try to get away from it(jumping). My male tore his fins so I put him in there for a moment to make sure fin rot did not settle. He jumped up and hit the lid of my half gallon "sick" tank twice. I got him out of there qucikly :-(
Still it is the best first step to take to combating fish illness. It is also the safest thing to do if you can't tell if something is wrong or not. The salt will not harm the fish and it is less expensive then medication
Agreed, the entire bath process with any fish should be observed, either for them trying to escape it or going unconscious. Thank you for mentioning that. I was half asleep when I wrote the how to last night. ;-)
I might do this salt bath as soon as i have the time. Maybe tuesday or sometime. Leo and Squirt have fin rot. But i dont think i have the tank for it... :l hmm i'll maybe figure it out
We did the salt bath on Neptune a few days back and he took it well. I had a question on this though. After the salt bath, can we use part of this salt water bath for the water change? I'm assuming since it has salt in it, we can use 30-40% of it for water change as well.
Right now he is in a large bowl, holding about just under a gallon. I filled it 1/2 way with the salt water and he's just swimming around like normal! At least he doesn't hate it....
Question: Right now I am treating my betta for fin rot. I panicked and medicated right away (not the best thing to do), but since it doesn't seem to bother him, I'm continuing the treatment as perscribed by the box. I was thinking of doing a salt bath afterwards, but would that be too harmful to the fish after medicating?
Thanks SO much for this, Neenjar!! My walmart betta is still suffering from fin rot. He does great with the baths, and even gets really colorful afterwards!!
That's great to hear. Are the fins still deteriorating or have they just not grown back yet? If the are still deteriorating I would look to stronger medication. If they have just not started growing back yet, then keep up what you are doing!
I treat my boys with salt water. I have Blue, Fishy and Merlin in a gallon of water with 1 tsp of aquarium salt. I change their water every day. I don't know if it's quite working yet. Gonna give it some time. Merlin seems lots better. Just taking a long long time with the fin rot on the other two.
They were getting better, but then he got some frayed edges. They aren't getting worse, so I think it is really helping! He is such a wonderful little guy, and deserves the best.
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