Okay. Last year at the PB conference a few people started talking about this, and it didn't come to conclusion.
So I'm throwing this out to a) see experiences, and b) see suggestions.
I'm considering adding salt to my pond because I've heard that it helps with algae, and it's actually healthy for the fish. Researching this isn't easy. Lots of info on medicinal purposes, but not for other reasons. This isn't possible in big ponds, but in microponds the salt volume probably is.
1 - anyone added salt to make their pond more brackish?
2 - why would you add salt?
3 - how much would you add?
AaronM do you have water and soil sample test results ? If not then I suggest that you get them prior to adding any elements like salt.
I do have water tests... soil isn't an issue - lined pond.
I have a natural salinity in my ponds at 5 ppt. This is about 1/7 of seawater. Bad for drinking but great for fish. I've never seen bacterial infections or fungus on any of my fish. The ones I raise indoors NEVER, EVER get sick. One funny result is that when I handle these fish they are so slimy you almost can't handle them. Lusk told me it's because of the salt. I'd be happy to provide a breakdown of my previous water analyses. Maybe you could model your pond after my water. I'd try it on a small scale first. Maybe an aqaurium or something? Then you could add to your pond incrementally just to be safe.
Thanks Bruce... going to dig to see how much salt I'd add to get it to 5ppt.
Does it have any effect on plants, algae, fa??
I don't know if there is a direct correlation, but I have little or no FA, but I have plenty of sago pondweed and horned pondweed. It definitely doesn't harm the invertebrates because I have trillions of those. I also seem to have good reproduction of all fish species.
Honestly, I have no clue as to whether my FA is affected by the salinity.
I would like to hear more on this. Bruce I thought you added salt to your water. Are you saying it leaches from the soil on its own? Can you think of any other reasons other than salinity as to why you don't have FA problems? Grass carp? Well water flow thru? MJ got a rake? Eric what possible negatives could this have on water quality other than the obvious problem of adding more salt than freshwater fish can tolerate? Right now I have access to large amounts of salt at zero cost if I do some cleaning of it first and the FA at the pond is also getting out of hand. Aaron if you find numbers on how much salt to add please post them. I will do some checking also but I don't think I have much info on it at work. Not practical for most people but in my situation adding salt may work.
DJT, FA grows really well in my watering troughs (better than in my pond). A small container like that might (100 gallons) be a good place to experiment with adding salt to see if it affects FA growth.
If it's the right kind of salt, up to a point salt is beneficial even for freshwater fish. Again, I'm 6 ppt, and seawater is something like 35 ppt. My soils and groundwater are all rich with salt. Nearby my farm are "Saline" county, the "Salt" Valley, etc. My big pond has finally been getting adequate rains so the salinity is back down to less than 1 ppt, so it will be interesting to see if I grow FA this year. I'm currently setting up a plan to buy a couple of waterfall pumps so I can eliminate use of well water altogether. If it rains normally that won't be difficult at all. Well water is expensive, so it would be nice to stop using ground water. My current annual average usage is less than 2 gallons per minute.
DJT adding any element without knowing (1 how it will effect what you are trying to establish/grow and (2 what your current system contains (how much natural salt in this case) can cause problems. Two examples. One Bruce should not add salt as his is high now and adding more could kill fish and or plants - what if he did not know this and just added a bunch of salt ? Two what happens if you want to kill FA and it turns out FA can withstand higher salt levels than most plankton species and some fish species. One note of caution - if you recall from history one way conquered enemies were punished was by salting their fields so nothing would grow - not enough salt you die , to much salt you die. It pays to know the limits before the application. Salt lasts a long time and becomes more concentrated with evaporation.
If you really wanted to add salt I would do calcuations and add it slowly and check it with a salt meter (they are not expensive). It would seem to me you would want to mix it first before adding, which could be a real slow process unless you added to an inflow of water. I read somewhere that salt simply thrown on the water that settles on fish in ornamental ponds can actually "burn" them.
I also read an article somewhere that showed how to calculate your pond volume by adding salt. I will see if I can find it.
Good stuff everyone! Bruce I thought your Morton building was named after the Morton brand salt you allegedly stored there then added to the pond.
See what happens when you assume too much. I don't think I will try to get cute with salt this year. I may stockpile some though for future experimenting. I bought a jug of Cutrine plus liquid and will attack the FA in a more conventional manner for now.
I drained a 150 gal rubbermaid 2 months back. It was loaded with ghostshrimp, crawdads, Gams, FHs, and 1 well fed RES. The salt content was up due to benefits, I had read online, to the shrimp, crawfish, and RES. I sorta tasted the water once, pretty salty (ack) yet my simple floating salt meter said it wasn't close to being enough for salt water fish. It was about triple the recommended level suggested for aquariums. For 18 mo. all the critters remained healthy; the shrimp 'an crawdads reproduced abundantly.
Good info SoSauty - were you running a filter or water exchange ?
All your inhabitants (shrimp , craws and RES ) have been noted to live in brackish water ( Lake Pontchartrain system a large brackish water lake near New Orleans) so no surprise with your salt fndings.
Here's a couple of links about adding salt to calculate the water volume of a pond. I thought this would be of interest since we were discussing adding salt to a pond.
http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/srac/103fs.pdfhttp://www.thekoidude.com/salt.html