Scavenger Question   8/21/08
Hello Crew,
<Hello,>
I would like to know some suggestions for scavengers in my fish tank.
<Stop. If you NEED scavengers, you are overfeeding. A properly maintained tank has NO NEED for scavengers. Indeed, expecting any fish to survive by "scavenging" is unrealistic. Bottom feeding fish like Corydoras need their own supply of good quality food, ideally offered at a time of day when other fish can't eat it before them, typically at night.>
It has angels, platys, zebra Danios, and a Gourami.
<Your Platies should happily be pecking away at the algae in the tank, and in the process will consume any uneaten food they find, assuming said food isn't rotten.>
I don't want to go with snails but i don't know which kinds of loaches or catfish can tolerate the aquarium salt i put in the water.
<Why are you putting salt in the water? None of these fish need salt, and long term some of them will be stressed by it. At best, adding salt is wasting your money. If you feel the need to fritter away your money, can I suggest you sprinkle the salt on the sidewalk, making pretty patterns. It will do much less harm there than in your FRESHWATER aquarium. The recommendation to add salt is old school and made (some) sense when we (the hobby) didn't really understand about water quality. Salt reduces the toxicity of nitrite and nitrate. But in a properly maintained tank you should have zero nitrite and less than 50 mg/l nitrate, so these chemicals aren't a problem. A lot of inexperienced fishkeepers get told by retailer to add "a teaspoon of salt per gallon" or some nonsense. This dosage will have no appreciable effect on parasites or bacteria, and the idea it's a "tonic" is garbage. Now, guess who recommends using salt? Correct: the salt manufacturers and retailers! Wake up and smell the coffee... you are being taken for a ride here. Even allowing for the waste of your money, salt places an osmoregulatory stress on freshwater fish. Your Platies won't care being quite salt-tolerant anyway, but the Danios, Cichlids and Gouramis are all true freshwater fish with limited tolerance for salt, and over time things like Dropsy are more likely to develop than otherwise. So stop with the salt!>
Also, the leader Danio likes to chase my platys and the other Danios around. It sometimes (rarely) nips my veiltail angel's fins. How can i get rid of this problem? I have 5 Danios.
<Danios when kept in too-small a group become nippy. It's what they do, and it's widely stated in decent (modern) aquarium books. End of discussion. Keep them in bigger groups and in a tank large enough that they can burn off their energy without getting frustrated. I'd consider 5 too few, and would recommend you double that number. That would of course mean the tank would have to be big enough for them, and certainly not less than 90 cm/3' in length. Danios just AREN'T fish for "small tanks". They are big and they are active.> Thanks
<Cheers, Neale.>

Re:  Scavenger Question 8/22/08
Then should my tank have NO aquarium salt at all?
<If you're keeping freshwater, then no, you don't need to add salt. That's why they're called "freshwater fish"!>
I've noticed that before i started to add aquarium salt to my tanks my fish died constantly but now they don't die after i started adding salt.
<Salt detoxifies nitrite and nitrate. So if you have an aquarium with poor water quality, then adding salt can help -- at least in the short to medium term. But in the long term salt causes problems (for example, Malawi Bloat, which happens when non-salt tolerant cichlids are exposed to salt). Hence your job is to get water quality right by stocking sensibly, not overfeeding, and having a mature filter that's up to the job at hand. Adding salt is the equivalent of fixing a crack in a wall by painting over it. You hide the symptoms, but the problems are still there, potentially getting worse...>
The water quality was and is fine but they still died without the salt.
<Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Simply because two things happen coincidentally in time doesn't actually mean they're connected. Pick up any aquarium book and you'll see no mention of adding salt to the water of standard community fish. Why? Because on balance it does less good than harm. But good water quality, and understanding water chemistry, is very important.>
Also, how are goldfish affected by it?
<Carassius species including Carassius auratus are relatively salt tolerant and do occur in slightly brackish water. That said, they live and breed best in hard, alkaline freshwater.> Thanks
<Cheers, Neale.>

Re: Scavenger Question 8/22/08
Okay,
I stopped the addition of aquarium salt into my aquarium. I would like to add bottom feeders. Since there still may be a little salt left in the water after the water change, is it still safe to add catfish or loaches to my tank?
<Probably, yes. As ever, acclimate new livestock carefully.>
If so, which loaches or catfish can get along with angelfish, Gourami, zebra Danios, and platys? I have food like algae tablets and such that they can consume.
<Corydoras would be the best bets. Many species, ranging from the cheap and cheerful Bronze and Peppered Corydoras (Corydoras aeneus and Corydoras paleatus) through to more expensive and finicky species like Corydoras panda and Corydoras robinae. Can't really go wrong with any of them provided the water is clean and not too warm (few Corydoras like temperatures above 25 degrees C/77 degrees F). They are gregarious, so keep a group of at least three and preferably 5 or more specimens of whichever species you get. Whiptail catfish (Rineloricaria and/or Hemiloricaria spp.) are also peaceful and good value, and might appeal to you if you want something quirky. They are gregarious as well, though the males are territorial. Basically hardy, but like Corydoras, they do not like very warm water. Eat some algae, but primarily omnivores that feed on invertebrates and thrive on good quality pellet/algae wafers. I have a great fondness for Synodontis nigriventris, a schooling dwarf catfish from Africa; my only reservation is that it is sometimes a fin-nibbler, and not recommended for keeping with Angels. Otherwise a hardy and fun catfish (though very shy if not kept in sufficient numbers).> Thanks
<Cheers, Neale.>