"Gregory Young" wrote in message
et...
snip
Many, many people have raised fish for years, without any forms of
supplementation. Others swear by salt. Most of the arguments each way are
anecdotal.

Salt seems like kemothrepay to me. It's great if you need it, but it does
not sound like something I want to take every morning.

Let me know if you want the multiple discussion texts emailed to you...
snip

Please send them my way.

BV.

wrote in message
...
snip
Low salt levels have no down side. Ingrid
snip

I understand the medicinal values of salt...but is it safe to say there is
no down side to salting freshwater fish? Sounds a bit sketchy to me, at
least in front of newbies, myself included.

BV.

Actually, you may have misinterpreted what she said..... I took her to mean
that NOT salting your pond has no down sides. Maybe I misunderstood?
Sue

"BenignVanilla" m wrote in
message ...
wrote in message
...
snip
Low salt levels have no down side. Ingrid
snip

I understand the medicinal values of salt...but is it safe to say there is
no down side to salting freshwater fish? Sounds a bit sketchy to me, at
least in front of newbies, myself included.

BV.

Actually, you may have misinterpreted what she said..... I took her to mean
that NOT salting your pond has no down sides. Maybe I misunderstood?
Sue

"BenignVanilla" m wrote in
message ...
wrote in message
...
snip
Low salt levels have no down side. Ingrid
snip

I understand the medicinal values of salt...but is it safe to say there is
no down side to salting freshwater fish? Sounds a bit sketchy to me, at
least in front of newbies, myself included.

BV.

Actually, you may have misinterpreted what she said..... I took her to mean
that NOT salting your pond has no down sides. Maybe I misunderstood?
Sue

"BenignVanilla" m wrote in
message ...
wrote in message
...
snip
Low salt levels have no down side. Ingrid
snip

I understand the medicinal values of salt...but is it safe to say there is
no down side to salting freshwater fish? Sounds a bit sketchy to me, at
least in front of newbies, myself included.

BV.

"Sue Alexandre" wrote in message
news:TH%Ka.25204$G6.14050@lakeread04...
Actually, you may have misinterpreted what she said..... I took her to
mean
that NOT salting your pond has no down sides. Maybe I misunderstood?

snip

Maybe. What I thought she meant was, adding low levels of salt has no
downsides. Hopefully she will come clear this up...I am sure she will.

BV.

I lost one of my koi 3 weeks ago to Costia, I was leary of salting
the water myself but tried it out of desperation. I salted to .4 % and
let it sit for 3 weeks. Lots of cleaning the filters because of dead
algae and plenty of aeration. I just completed 'scrapes' of about 7 of
my fish and there's no sign of costia or anything else now. The fish
are doing great, appetites are definatley up and I'm going to do water
changes to get it back down to .1% which I've been told is good for
long term health.

If you have a problem I can now personally recommend salt treatments
they worked like a charm. Though it sure sounds like a hell of a lot
of salt :-)

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 11:30:34 -0400, "BenignVanilla"
m wrote:

wrote in message
...
snip
Low salt levels have no down side. Ingrid
snip

I understand the medicinal values of salt...but is it safe to say there is
no down side to salting freshwater fish? Sounds a bit sketchy to me, at
least in front of newbies, myself included.

BV.

Hey Tom, good to hear from you. Aquaculture doing well??
I wish to add to what you have said, by commenting on other posts to this
thread. There is no advantage whatsoever to use salt to have "thicker slime
coats" as some have stated. The thickness of the slime layer is NOT
reflective of the health of the fish!
Why? Because the thickest of slime coats I, and others who have treated
fresh water fish, have ever seen, are often in the most ill of fish.
In fact the slime coat is secreted, not excreted, in response to irritants
(ie higher salt concentrations than the fish are accustomed to in the water
for one), stress, sudden temperature changes, bacterial,/viral/parasitic
infections, etc, etc.
The antibodies contained in the slime coat (IgA) have not been shown to
correlate with immunity to disease, nor with recovery from disease.
For some to say salt is not recommended to treat diseases reflects a lack of
understanding of the risk vs benefit ratios of the treatments we have
available at present.
Yes, you can certainly use formalin, PP, various antibiotics, etc, but each
of these treatments have definite risks, (some to the human provider as well
as their finned pets).
I will always start with a treatment that has been shown to work with a
higher therapeutic ratio (which is the ratio of the beneficial effects
compared to adverse effects) like salt, once I arrive at a diagnosis.
You don't need to be a "scientist" to treat your fish, but you should have
some understanding of disease and treatment options.
There are several excellent books available for those not trained in disease
identification. You can go to akca.org and check out their library
references.
BV, I will check for your email address, and start sending you all the posts
on salt , both pro and con as promised. Will do that on Sunday.
Happy ponding,
Greg
--


"Tom La Bron" wrote in message
...
jan JJsPond.us,

You know everyone who touts salt in the water posts the URLs from various
sources, but the thing that is interesting is that these degreed people
are
dealing with aquaculture facilities not ponds. I have said this over and
over again when Rod has posted them and again and again when Ingrid has
posted them. I have even questioned Ruth office in Georgia which is the
main researcher that Ingrid always quotes and she says that her findings
are
for aquaculture facilities not ponds. It is interesting the URL that Rod
always uses for telling you how to dose your water to the right percentage
is a sight that telling how much salt to put in your transport tanks for
trucking the fish over the open road. It has absolutely nothing to do
with
ponds and using salt in ponds.

I guess no one actually reads these references because if they did they
would realize that they are not about ponds, but aquaculture techniques
dealing in rearing ponds and recirc systems where you deal with one pound
of
fish in two gallons of water, which, by the way, is a lot denser than one
KOI per 100 gallons of water.

These "people" are leaders in their fields, but there are helping
aquaculture facilities not home ponders with keeping their KOI.

These URLs are from the university research facilities at Cornell,
Purdue,
Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia, and etc. but are working to keep aquaculture
a
valid alternative agriculture for the U.S.

HTH

Tom L.L.
"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 22:00:02 -0400 (EDT), (Denise)
wrote:

I was told by a few people (who should know!) NOT to use salt with koi
in pond or tank.

Denise

) Unless they're koi vets, our people out degree your people. ;o)
Who
ARE are these few people? ) ~ jan

See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

Gregory Young wrote:
Hey Tom, good to hear from you. Aquaculture doing well??
I wish to add to what you have said, by commenting on other posts to this
thread. There is no advantage whatsoever to use salt to have "thicker slime
coats" as some have stated. The thickness of the slime layer is NOT
reflective of the health of the fish!
Why? Because the thickest of slime coats I, and others who have treated
fresh water fish, have ever seen, are often in the most ill of fish.
In fact the slime coat is secreted, not excreted, in response to irritants
(ie higher salt concentrations than the fish are accustomed to in the water
for one), stress, sudden temperature changes, bacterial,/viral/parasitic
infections, etc, etc.
The antibodies contained in the slime coat (IgA) have not been shown to
correlate with immunity to disease, nor with recovery from disease.
For some to say salt is not recommended to treat diseases reflects a lack of
understanding of the risk vs benefit ratios of the treatments we have
available at present.
Yes, you can certainly use formalin, PP, various antibiotics, etc, but each
of these treatments have definite risks, (some to the human provider as well
as their finned pets).
I will always start with a treatment that has been shown to work with a
higher therapeutic ratio (which is the ratio of the beneficial effects
compared to adverse effects) like salt, once I arrive at a diagnosis.
You don't need to be a "scientist" to treat your fish, but you should have
some understanding of disease and treatment options.
There are several excellent books available for those not trained in disease
identification. You can go to akca.org and check out their library
references.
BV, I will check for your email address, and start sending you all the posts
on salt , both pro and con as promised. Will do that on Sunday.
Happy ponding,
Greg


--
here is a link to a good article on salt pro and cons look for the
article salt but no vinegar

http://www.koi-unleashed.co.uk./


John Rutz
Z5 New Mexico

good judgement comes from bad experience, and that comes from bad
judgement

see my pond at:

http://www.fuerjefe.com

Jan wrote:

Unless they're koi vets, our people out degree your people. ;o) Who
ARE are these few people? )

I don't HAVE have people LOL. I was referring to what I was told by the
folks who breed and sell koi for a living. They wouldn't have successful
businesses all these years if they didn't know what they were doing...

Hey, if anyone wants to use salt in the their koi ponds, go right ahead
)

Denise

there is no downside to keeping a low salt concentration in the pond. some places
are lucky in that the water naturally has a low salt solution, so it is always
important to check the water supply for salt levels BEFORE adding more salt.
Ingrid

"BenignVanilla" m wrote:
I understand the medicinal values of salt...but is it safe to say there is
no down side to salting freshwater fish? Sounds a bit sketchy to me, at
least in front of newbies, myself included.

BV.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
www.drsolo.com
Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other
compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the
endorsements or recommendations I make.

It has nothing to do with creating a THICK slime coat. Low levels of salt stimulate
the slime coat and it "turns over", it doesnt thicken the slime coat. Really high
levels strip the slime coat.

The antibody produced by fish is secretory IgM, NOT IgA.

" Detection of specific antibodies in the serum of animals is recognized as a useful
indicator of previous exposure to pathogens.
* ADL produces probes (AquaMab-F) to enable the detection of IgM by ELISA in a
range of fish species used in aquaculture. This is extremely useful for broodstock
health testing. It also provides tools for monitoring the immune response in fish
following vaccination and therefore will assist in the development of vaccines in the
future as the more fish species are cultured and new diseases emerge."
http://www.aquaticdiagnostics.com/detection2.htm
"Although infection with Ichthyophthirius multifiliis is often lethal, some fish
recover and develop resistance to subsequent infection. Under laboratory conditions
fish can be routinely immunized by exposure to controlled numbers of parasites. The
existence of acquired immunity against Ich provides the opportunity for the
development of protective vaccines. In addition, studies of the protective immune
response against Ich provide a useful model for the elucidation of the mechanisms by
which fish respond to pathogens which infect through epithelial surfaces.
Serum and mucus antibodies from immune fish immobilize free-swimming theronts
in vitro , suggesting several potential antibody-mediated mechanisms of protection.
For instance, antibodies in mucus could block penetration of theronts into the
epithelium of the skin and gills. Because immobilization can be readily observed in
the laboratory and fits a number of different models of potential mechanisms of
immunity, considerable effort in this laboratory has been dedicated to identifying
the target antigens responsible for this phenomenon, with the ultimate goal of
developing a subunit vaccine."
http://www.vet.uga.edu/mmb/dickerson/research.html
IgM is the most primitive type of antibody. But fish also have been found to produce
anti-micriobial proteins, http://www.cvm.ncsu.edu/cbs/noga_ed.htm
Ingrid

"Gregory Young" wrote:
There is no advantage whatsoever to use salt to have "thicker slime
coats" as some have stated. The thickness of the slime layer is NOT
reflective of the health of the fish!
in response to irritants
The antibodies contained in the slime coat (IgA) have not been shown to
correlate with immunity to disease, nor with recovery from disease.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
www.drsolo.com
Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other
compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the
endorsements or recommendations I make.

Sounds like you got it under control. OTOH, salt levels this high are hard on fish
for more than a few days, if the gills were compromised by disease the fish wouldnt
have made it. It kills plants, it may cause the biofilter to crash. None of this is
good. The idea is not to kill all the parasites, actually that is not really
possible anyway. It is to drop the level and slow em down to where the fish can
fight the disease themselves while providing as pristine water conditions as
possible. both formalin and PP will do this and be gone in 4-12 hours. Ingrid

DesertPond tapetrade@[No Spam]cox.net wrote:
I lost one of my koi 3 weeks ago to Costia, I was leary of salting
the water myself but tried it out of desperation. I salted to .4 % and
let it sit for 3 weeks. Lots of cleaning the filters because of dead
algae and plenty of aeration. I just completed 'scrapes' of about 7 of
my fish and there's no sign of costia or anything else now. The fish
are doing great, appetites are definatley up and I'm going to do water
changes to get it back down to .1% which I've been told is good for
long term health.

If you have a problem I can now personally recommend salt treatments
they worked like a charm. Though it sure sounds like a hell of a lot


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
www.drsolo.com
Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other
compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the
endorsements or recommendations I make.

It is more like using soap and water to wash your hands. get rids of the cooties.
light salt is supportive of good slime coat health. Ingrid

"BenignVanilla" m wrote:
Salt seems like kemothrepay to me. It's great if you need it, but it does
not sound like something I want to take every morning.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
www.drsolo.com
Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other
compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the
endorsements or recommendations I make.

On Thu, 26 Jun "Tom La Bron" always the skeptic wrote:

You know everyone who touts salt in the water posts the URLs from various
sources, but the thing that is interesting is that these degreed people are
dealing with aquaculture facilities not ponds.
snipped soapbox and personal attacks on other rec.ponders past and
present
These "people" are leaders in their fields, but there are helping
aquaculture facilities not home ponders with keeping their KOI.

The vets I spoke of were the ones who are working closely with the program
of training the AKCA's Koi Health Advisors, and do make house calls and
work with koi ponds. For a website www.akca.org all about koi & keeping
them (but then you know that). Plus, the latest koi health book yet to hit
the shelves (but is already available to the KHA's) is called: Advanced Koi
Care by Dr. Nick Saint-Erne. He's a vet, probably does work with other
aquaculture situation, so perhaps he doesn't know anything either regarding
backyard koi ponds? ;o)

Rod has posted them and again and again

Kind of a cut low to attack someone who is in the process of moving and
can't respond. ~ jan

See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website