Hal,
First point, the USDA said nothing of recommending anything in this article.
Chemicals and meds used in Aquaculture are regulated by the EPA and FDA, and
the reason for this is because the article that you are citing deals with
food fish.
Second point. 200 to 500ppm is equal to .02 to 05% salt in the water. This
is next to nothing and there is not a device on the market that can read
that low accurately with out spending a big chuck of money. In fact most
devices read in parts per ton (ppt) and one ppt is equal 1000ppm. In
addition, most people have more than that in Total Dissolved Salts (TDS) in
their water systems all ready. Here in Pawnee TDS averages about 410ppm, in
Stillwater it is 4,750ppm and for the most part TDS are going to affect any
salt meter you are using.
Also the remark you made about nitrite is incorrect somewhat, because it is
not the salt that helps protect against nitrite poisoning it is the chloride
in the salt that does this because it competes for the absorption position
at the gills of the fish as they are taking up oxygen from the water, plus
the chloride in the has to be 20:1 higher to the nitrite and must be
adjusted continually as the nitrite increases in concentration. Also,
Calcium chloride could be used instead of Sodium Chloride to achieve this
concentration. One level of Chloride in the water is not going to protect
as the level of nitrite increases. The chloride level must be adjust all
the time.
Also I would like to point out that in the place that suggests an indefinite
concentration of salt at the level of 1,000-2,000ppm (0.1 - 0.2%) is for
"hauling tanks." This is when the supplier is transporting 450 fish in a
500gallong tank. The indefinite time they are talking about deals with the
duration of time the fish are in the transport tank going from point A to
point B. During the hauling period a very high level of air is being pumped
into the tank to supply all the oxygen the high stocking level and to help
off set the amount of toxic waste that is building up in the tank during
transport.
The third point is that this article is for aquaculture facilities that are
dealing with pounds of fish per gallon of water not one Goldfish per 10
gallons of water. There is no correlation between this article and your
garden pond where you are keeping one KOI per 100 gallons of water.
It has nothing to do with back yard ponds.
Oh, and by the BV remark is supported by research now, for now there are
parasites and bacteria that live better in salter environments requiring
higher levels to kill them because of the prophylactic use of salt in fish
environments.
HTH
Tom L.L.
------------------------------------------
"Hal" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 6 Feb 2004 09:39:14 -0500, "BenignVanilla"
wrote:
I am just going to toss my biased 2 cents in. You should add NONE unless
you
are treating some condition and even then, you should know what you are
dealing with before you dose. I know penicillin kills a lot of stuff but
I
don't take it every day just in case. IMHO, salting your pond is the same
concept.
USDA recommends 200 to 500 ppm as an indefinite (permanent) salinity.
It relieves osmotic stress and prevents nitrite toxicity. This level
does not directly treat diseases or parasites, but it may allow fish to
more easily fight off and prevent them. This level is 2-2/3 to 6-2/3
ounces per 100 gallons. For 800 gallons, it would be 1.3 to 3.4 pounds.
As you can see, the precise level isn't important, and these levels are
far below those that affect plants. Reference: Table 3 in USDA
"Calculating Treatments for Ponds"
http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/aquanic/pu...srac/410fs.pdf
n Rod
Reference is probably old and out of date, but the idea is still alive
in some ponders.
Regards,
Hal