There are many pros and cons to salt. Depending on where you live and your
water source, you may already have .02 to .12 salt in your pond, just from
the "natural" salt content. You won't taste salt in that concentration, but
it will be there. That's why you have to test for salt FIRST, before you add
the measured amount. Otherwise, you get skewed results. Keep watching this
newsgroup and other "fish" boards over the next few months as the ponds
"wake up" and the fish are distressed: the use of salt is frequently
advocated for problems. It's not a bad thing, just if it's kept at higher
levels for too long. Also, if you ever need to use formalin, ANY salt can
have deadly consequences.

Short of actually metering your water when you initially fill your pond -
something none of us EVER seems to remember to do - the salt test is the
only way I know to determine the *actual* water in your pond. For what it's
worth, your weekly water changes will reduce the salt to Zero over a few
weeks/months, depending on the size of your pond and the percentage of salt
you used. Caveat: you MUST do water changes, not just "top off". "Topping
off" refills water that evaporated, which means that everything in the pond
simply becomes more concentrated as the volume decreases. Actual water
changes are needed to dilute/remove the chemicals and other chemistry (such
as the growth hormones the fish excrete) from the water.

Hope this helps.
Lee


"Carola / Les" wrote in message
. ..


Thanks for that very useful information, Lee.
There are no negative responses to the post so that must be the way to go,
although I don't think that adding salt to a pond is generally
appreciated.
Les.