GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

17-02-2005, 10:35 PM

wrote:
It wouldn't hurt to add salt to the pond because you must have a lack
of oxygen in the water. At the very least put an airstone with
multipule lines in the pond before you put the fish back in because it
will probably happen again. Good luck.

I think you are confusing two different forms of respiratory distress and
combining them into one condition. Non-disease causes of breathing
problems in fish are usually low oxygenation and nitrite poisoning. The
air stones will help with oxygenation, but salt is for nitrite poisoning.
Salt in and of itself will not add more oxygen to the water. What it does
do is help prevent nitrites from being absorbed over the gills. This
prevents nitrite poisoning. Nitrite poisoning converts hemoglobin into a
form that cannot carry oxygen, thus why the symptoms are similar to low
oxygenation, but the root causes and treatments are different.