Pond? Yes, it has many benefits for creating a defense against bacteria and parasites. When used correctly, it effectively treats new, stressed, or sick koi in your pond. If you want to use salt in your pond, then read through this article very carefully and ensure you understand how it is used before adding to your pond. Too much salt is toxic and can even kill your koi, so be careful when you say “It is good for koi”. Salt is good for defending against bacteria; but in fact, it is actually harmful if used too much. Salt will help to treat parasites, fight nitrite toxicity, and improve mucous slime coat production with an inexpensive solution that will fit in with your biological filter. Learn more There are 2 main reasons why we use salt for Koi, both are about maintaining a healthier fish: 1. Use salt to take care of parasites and/or bacteria on a Koi’s body. Koi live in freshwater. So do parasites and bacteria. A koi pond salt treatment helps eliminate freshwater parasites and bacteria. I personally feel that parasites are becoming more resistant and that salt hardly kills parasites, but it still works well for something like columnaris bacteria. 2. Use salt to promote sickness recovery by balancing a Koi’s osmoregulation. To explain, a Koi is a freshwater fish; but because the salt level of its body fluid is much higher than the surrounding water, water keeps coming into its body. Its body does not burst because it can release water as urine and thus stay balanced. When a Koi gets sick or stressed, that affects its body’s function of balancing osmotic pressure. To help remedy this, we can add salt to raise the koi pond salt level to closely match that of a Koi’s body fluid. This way the water does not enter its body as much. The benefit is that the Koi’s body does not have to work as hard which helps the Koi recover quicker.
Before you add salt, remember to remove plants, clean the pond, and perform a 50% water change if you have time to delay the salt treatment. In the winter and fall, some say that using pond salt will help survival during the cold winter months, but we do not agree and believe you should only use salt when it is needed. If you have a pond heater, then that will be enough to keep koi functioning through the winter. Always use salt in a quarantine tank or temporary tank to increase fish’s natural resistance to disease. You may consider letting the salt dissolve in a bucket of pond water before you add directly in the pond, to keep it from burning koi with an area that is too concentrated or not yet dissolved. Leave in the water and add in gradually. It may take 14–21 days to completely remove parasites, varying under different temperatures. Add the salt all at once if your fish are dying rapidly. Remove salt with partial water changes. Don’t pour out the excess water onto a tree or plant since it could do some damage.
What Type of Salt for Koi Pond Salt Treatment? Use non-iodized pure salt. You can buy a big bag of salt at a hardware store like Home Depot or Lowes. Please never use salt with formalin. Salt and formalin do not get along. If you use salt and formalin together, it could kill your Koi. Regarding what kind of salt to use in your koi pond, avoid table salt and any iodized salt. Salt is toxic to Koi if used at high levels for longer periods of time. If using too much, it will shut down their kidneys, and one of the reasons many people have Koi with “pop-eye” or symptoms like Dropsy.
How Much Salt Do I Use In Koi Pond? The dosage varies from 0.3%–0.6% salt level for treating illness. Otherwise for consistent use, 1 kg (2.2 lb) of salt per every 1000 liters (265 gallons) of water, which makes approximately a 0.1% salt water solution. Formula for amount of salt. 2.2 x(gallons of water)/265=lbs of salt needed Recommend you start with 0.3% and gradually raise it to 0.5% as needed. 0.6% is recommended only when your Koi seems to be very stressed or sick. Spread out your salt treatment throughout a few days and continue monitoring the salinity levels. You DO NOT want to use too much salt for the safety of your koi, too much can be deadly! Remember that salt does not evaporate; and when doing a water change, add your salt based on amount of the water replaced, not the total volume of pond. How Do I Check Salt Level in My Koi Pond? Use a digital salt meter. Please never guess your pond’s salt level. One experienced staff member had added a regular amount of salt in one of the tanks. But soon after, Koi started dying. At first, we did not know why; but found out later that there was some salt left in the tank from a previous use. She had not checked the salinity. She simply assumed that all the salt content was gone and added another regular dosage of salt. That addition increased the salinity much higher than the Koi could handle; and they died. So please check your salt level every time before adding salt to your pond. Will Adding Salt Kill Pond Plants? If you have water plants, you are definitely now wondering, “Will salt kill my pond plants?” The answer is that many pond plants cannot take as much salt as your Koi. So if you are unsure if the plants can take salt or not, remove pond plants before you add salt to your koi pond. For this reason, I usually recommend you avoid growing water plants in Koi ponds. As salinity level increases, these pond plants become less able to tolerate and are sensitive to salt:
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anacharis
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water hyacinths
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lotus
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lavender musk
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water lilies
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forget-me-nots
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zebra rush
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cattails
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floating hearts