Description
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.
