# Epsom Salt



## katytropheus

What's the guidance on amount of epsom salt to put in on an initial tank setup?

Thanks.


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## BrownBullhead

1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of new water is the "standard" amount to use, both on initial setup, and at water changes. You can tweak the amount over time as you become experienced with your water chemistry requirements.

So if you were setting up a 55 gallon setup, you would use 11 tablespoons (55 / 5) on initial setup.

If you then did a 50% water change, which would be approximately 27.5 gallons _(remember, the substrate, rocks, etc. are volume, which decreases water amount, so you wouldn't actually be draining 27.5 gallons; it would be less)_ you would use about 5 tablespoons (25 {rounded} / 5) during water change.

The "cichlid bufffer recipe" also calls for Baking Soda, which would follow the above mathematical concepts for setup and changes, however the ratio is 1 TABLEspoon of Baking Soda for 15 gallons of water (or 1 TEAspoon for 5 gallons); _essentially, 1/3 the amount of Baking Soda as compared to Epsom Salt._

_1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoon_.

The recipe also calls for Sea Salt in this same ratio (1 tablespoon of Sea Salt for 15 gallons of water (or 1 TEAspoon for 5 gallons)), but some people debate whether Sea Salt should be added to a cichlid aquarium at all.


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## katytropheus

Thank you for a very informative and specific response.


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## katytropheus

So on a 300 gallon tank, 60 tablespoonsful of epsom salt, right? wow! No problem, right? Doesn't it corrode like crazy which you see all over salt water acquariums?


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## Guest

Whoa. The amount of epsom salt to be added depends on how hard your water is in the first place. You should first measure your source water first. Use GH and KH test kits (best) or get an analysis from your water company. dGH and dKH units are additive.

Lake Tanganyika has a dGH between 11 and 17 and a dKH between 16 and 19.


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## BrownBullhead

*CycleSafe*: That is why I put "standard" in quotations, as it wasn't an absolute value, it was more of a relative measure. However, even with those "typical" Lake Tanganyika numbers, it's not an exact science as in: My water is 6 GH, the lake is 11 GH, so I must add ### tablespoons of Epsom Salt to exact the difference.

I never implied to just throw caution and current tap water parameters out the window; I just gave a quick synopsis of the measures used as "standards" in the recipe on this site.

Some people may in fact have to add *more* sodiums and carbonates than the "standard" amounts.

*Disclaimer*: Measure your initial tap water (after allowing it to "settle" for 12 - 24 hours), using a 5 gallon sample if possible. Add the "standard" amounts of salts and carbonates, and mix. Allow the water to "settle" again for 24 hours. Measure the impact the "standards" have against your tap water parameters. Finally, buffer your tank according to the "impacts" you determined. It's not an exact science at the level most of us are on, mind you.


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## katytropheus

I have read and talked to people keeping tropheus that seem to use Epsom Salt in the "fight bloat" campaign as a preventative along with Metro soaked food. Does the quantity calculation change if you are primarily trying to keep bloat from occurring in tropheus?


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## lloyd

katytropheus said:


> I have read and talked to people keeping tropheus that seem to use Epsom Salt in the "fight bloat" campaign as a preventative along with Metro soaked food.


 epsom salt can be used as a preventative, but metronidazole is, and should be administered strictly, as an antibacterial medicine.



katytropheus said:


> Does the quantity calculation change if you are primarily trying to keep bloat from occurring in tropheus?


 IMO, once your water tests at 10-14 gh, adding more epsom salt can no longer add benefit to your purpose.


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## noddy

I use sea salt and baking soda,I was thinking about adding epsum salt myself. Lloyd, do use it on your trophs/petro's?


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## lloyd

noddy said:


> I use sea salt and baking soda,I was thinking about adding epsum salt myself. Lloyd, do use it on your trophs/petro's?


 Hi Noddy...my 'water at source' test results are gh=160+ mg/l., and kh=60+mg/l., so i still add a bit of baking soda and sea salt to all my tang tanks, but no longer include epsom salt.


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## noddy

lloyd said:


> noddy said:
> 
> 
> 
> I use sea salt and baking soda,I was thinking about adding epsum salt myself. Lloyd, do use it on your trophs/petro's?
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Noddy...my 'water at source' test results are gh=160+ mg/l., and kh=60+mg/l., so i still add a bit of baking soda and sea salt to all my tang tanks, but no longer include epsom salt.
Click to expand...

Thanks Lloyd. I'll look into it a bit more.


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## flashg

Baking Soda!!!  

Epsom salt is good electrolytes and a saline laxitive... It will also add to the KH/GH... Not much though!


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## noddy

baking soda will increase the kh. It will also increase the ph, but will only raise it to 8.2 (I believe). I have to add 1 tsp baking soda per gal. just to get the kh to 13. It also helps prevent ph crashes which, in my case is a good thing. :droolingI'm drooling because I'm tired). Sorry if wev'e hijacked your thread katy.


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## flashg

Yes Katy sorry for hijacking!!! But Noddy is your water really that bad? It is a scary thought to me that you have to add something to you water to keep trophs... Sounds like major pH swings to me!!! I add epsom salt to help when my fish have been "Rough Housing" but that is the only reason... Never to alter the water parameters!


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## noddy

flashg said:


> Yes Katy sorry for hijacking!!! But Noddy is your water really that bad? It is a scary thought to me that you have to add something to you water to keep trophs... Sounds like major pH swings to me!!! I add epsom salt to help when my fish have been "Rough Housing" but that is the only reason... Never to alter the water parameters!


What is the ph and kh out of the tap where you are?


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## flashg

pH is about 8.4 give or take (Color test are not my thing and that is after I let the water sit out for 24 hours to let the gases from the lines escape... Other wise it is about 7.2)

KH = 200ppm or 11.2gH which ever units you prefer
GH = 260ppm or 14.6gH

These are strait for the tap... My tanks are probably a bit higher from the oolitic sand and limestone in my tank... Never tested my african tanks with more than a quick dip, because testing is a pain in the butt! :lol:


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## NorthShore

I add a few tablespoons of epsom salts to a 75 gallon water change. I use it mainly for its laxative qualities.


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## katytropheus

NorthShore,

Bingo on what I was told by the largest tropheus dealer in Houston--laxative as well as some Metro soaked pellets.


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## Guest

Mods. There is serious misinformation in this thread. I suggest you delete it. Epsom salts is MgSO4.7H20. It raises GH not KH. In fact to increase water hardness, most hobbiests only use this. There are no laxative properties.

This forum is (was?) a wealth of information. Please maintain its integrity.


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## flashg

Ok dude... Go drink a glass of water with some magnesium sulfate (epsom salt) dissolved in it... Tell us how long before you have to drop a watery turd! Magnesium hydroxide might work a bit better, but still be my guest!


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## Guest

This is a forum about FISH, dude. Look, science must be simplified for its benefits to be accessable to non-scientists, but recklessly dumbing down science-based FACTS to where they are misleading and plain wrong is not doing this forum any good. Or are you a troll?


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## lloyd

Cyclesafe said:


> Epsom salts is MgSO4.7H20. It raises GH not KH. In fact to increase water hardness, most hobbiests only use this. There are no laxative properties.


 we agree....it's not difficult, to google plenty of advice, where epsom salt is suggested to aid in treatment of dropsy, bloat, popeye, and other swelling disorders. in my understanding, the logic is to draw water from the fish (dehydrate), in an effort to relieve swelling, and thereby reducing the risk of parasitic and/or bacterial opportunisms during other treatments. IMHO, it is a secondary addition to a primary medical treatment. that is, one that relieves a symptom, but offers no cure. 
although brackish fish (eg. scat, mono, datnoid, etc) can benefit from the addition of magnesium to their water, i doubt epsom salt offers any regular maintenance benefit to freshwater fishes, than to those who need gh raised slightly. also, it will not assist baking soda to buffer. in fact, it could offer opportunity for ph to rise substantially.


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## Guest

Those with soft water should raise their GH to levels required by Lake Tanganyikan fish. This is cheaply and effectively done by adding Epsom salt. Raising hardness also with calcium to better duplicate lake water is more difficult because of the low solubility of cheap / available calcium salts such as calcium carbonate. But experience tells us that the ratio of Mg to Ca is not important (for the fish) and that besides most source waters contain more calcium than magnesium.

Same with KH. Raising KH, most cheaply done with baking soda, raises pH to again levels required.

Do we need to duplicate lake water? Our experience tells us no. You can't using baking soda alone anyway. Can our fish thrive in conditions drastically different (low GH and low pH) conditions? Again no. You need to work with your source water by modifing it to make conditions acceptable.

Llloyd, you say there is information about adding Epsom salts to effect or aid in effecting cures, but my guess is that the suggested levels of addition would result in a GH far in excess of what you'd want your fish in for any length of time. My comments in the posts above refer to additons that would establish proper long term conditions. At concentrations of magnesium sulfate that result in a GH of 11 to 17 (200-300ppm measured as general carbonate hardness), I doubt if there is much of dramatic osmotic effect, at least one that would help to cure disease. I guess my point is that if the fish are being kept at appropriate GH to begin with and they then get sick, effective curative levels of Epsom salt would have to a be multiple of lake levels.


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## noddy

On second thoughts, forget it.


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## 24Tropheus

To be honest I have no evidence of epsom salts as a laxative for fish and Tropheus.
It does work this way for loads of animals if in the food maybe it needs to be in the food for fish?

Any evidence it works for this?

Is it just an old wives tale it works for this?

Is it just good to give Tropheus or any fish the levels of magnesium and sulphate they wound have in the wild?


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## lloyd

24Tropheus said:


> To be honest I have no evidence of epsom salts as a laxative for fish and Tropheus.
> It does work this way for loads of animals if in the food maybe it needs to be in the food for fish?
> 
> Any evidence it works for this?


 i have read that some koi keepers will force ingest a grain of epsom salt, to help a fish deal with intestinal disorder. but, if ingestion is key to effectiveness, then treating the water column requires excessive dosing. that may be optional with water neutral medications (eg. metronidazole), but i would hesitate to indiscriminately add a chemical, that has the capacity to alter a water's quantity, just to (attempt to) avoid a potential.


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## NorthShore

Cyclesafe said:


> Mods. There is serious misinformation in this thread. I suggest you delete it. Epsom salts is MgSO4.7H20. It raises GH not KH. In fact to increase water hardness, most hobbiests only use this. There are no laxative properties.


I have no plans to delete what has become an interesting thread.

I didn't read through all the posts thoroughly and thanks for catching the piece that epsom salts increase KH.

It could be that the belief that epsom salts help fish with bloat-like conditions is false but there are a whole lot of hobbyists who believe it does do just that. It is all over the internet.


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## lloyd

Cyclesafe said:


> I guess my point is that if the fish are being kept at appropriate GH to begin with and they then get sick, effective curative levels of Epsom salt would have to a be multiple of lake levels.


 yes. but IMHO, to no effect. as i posted earlier, my GH=160+. i have, in the past, Q'd ill tropheus from these waters, and added an 'additional' 1 teaspoon/gallon (Q tank was 15 gal tank) of epsom salt to attempt remedy of bloat-like conditions. the results were so inconclusive (similar results can be achieved with clean water and a coin toss), that i assumed epsom salt dosing, at any level, to be irrelevant to cause. i have never witnessed any change in fecal density, water clarity, etc., that would hint suspect, that epsom salt exposure was offering a laxative type effect to my fish.
thanks for the dialogue, cyclesafe. i appreciate reading your posts.



24Tropheus said:


> Is it just good to give Tropheus or any fish the levels of magnesium and sulphate they wound have in the wild?


 i think most would agree, that all cichlids can somewhat adapt to any water parameter, but i personally, will always prefer to alter water specific to a fish's origin.


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## noddy

O.K I just went and picked up some new test kits. straight out of the tap, my gh is 10, and my kh is 6. I add 1 tsp of baking soda per 5 gallons to give me a kh of 17-18 which puts my ph at 8.2, I don't do anything to alter the gh. I'm sure that without the baking soda, the trophs would not thrive in this water.


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## mcorbeil

Anyone care to comment on the addition of table salt? NaCl? In Ad Koning's books he claims the the salt will help with osmotic pressure, and recommends using it during bloat treatments. I don't have the book in front of me, (back to nature: Tanganyika cichlids 2nd addition) so i can't pull any direct quotes.

Question:
would the addition of table salt act just like the leading sports drinks with electrolytes? Does the fish get "re-hydrated" allowing the intestinal blockage to be dislodged or become motile?


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## lloyd

mcorbeil said:


> Anyone care to comment on the addition of table salt? NaCl? In Ad Koning's books he claims the the salt will help with osmotic pressure, and recommends using it during bloat treatments.


 IMHO, this one is still up for debate. if salt can effect (relieve) osmotic pressure, and it does, then it should be good for everything from nitrite poisoning to stress relief. it can also assist with slime coat development. all this...with very little salt required. sounds like a no brainer-until you consider salt does not evaporate, and can be very difficult to measure in low levels by the average keeper. long term exposure, to excessive salt levels, starts to cause other problems for freshwater species. :?


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## flashg

Tables salt is iodized not sure I would use that... And as far as the excessive salt expose over time, I think that would only be a problem if you did not do water changes much... The salt will dissolve in the water and thus leave your tank during a water change.... In theory that is.


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