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Hum, I'm not sure the exact situation with salt and the worms but I think 3 ppt is well within tolerance for the worms. If they seem really affected by the salt, then you might simply place a flower pot with moist compost on top of each grow bed and the worms can escape to that if they are really distressed. (I've found this is a fairly easy way to collect some worms from a grow bed too.)
I've been keeping 0.15% water softener salt in my pond for many years. The plants don't seem to mind, but I'm growing a variety of vegetables in my aquaponic systems, and wonder if there are other salts besides sodium chloride that would help keep the fish slimy and benefit the plants at the same time rather than stress them.
I'm getting from what has previously been posted here that 0.15% sodium chloride is not enough to harm most vegetables, but I'm wondering if Ca2+, Mg2+,. Zn2+ and FE2+ might not provide enough irritant to the fish to promote slime and benefit the plants at the same time and allow for less sodium chloride to be kept in the water.
I searched for information that might confirm the idea that salt does not necessarily have to be NaCl. Here is a link to a product called of all things Cichlid Lake Salt where the benefits of other trace elements are promoted.
Guaranteed Analysis
Calcium (min) | 3.24 %
|
Calcium (max) | 3.50 %
|
Magnesium (min) | 11.83 %
|
Potassium (min) | 10.08 %
|
Sodium (min) | 3.53 %
|
Sodium (max) | 3.75 %
|
Aluminum (min) | 0.90 mg
|
Iodine (min) | 0.02 mg
|
Iron (min) | 0.20 mg
|
I know I'm often a sucker for these kind of ads, and tend to throw time and money at things that don't matter, so I'm curious to hear what others think. I'm guessing that some of these minerals would be available from the fish food so the need for Cichlid Salt may not be necessary.
But it still leaves me wondering about my original premise that other salts/minerals can reduce the need for NaCl and thereby benefit both fish and plants.
Bob Campbell said:
I've been keeping 0.15% water softener salt in my pond for many years. The plants don't seem to mind, but I'm growing a variety of vegetables in my aquaponic systems, and wonder if there are other salts besides sodium chloride that would help keep the fish slimy and benefit the plants at the same time rather than stress them.
I'm getting from what has previously been posted here that 0.15% sodium chloride is not enough to harm most vegetables, but I'm wondering if Ca2+, Mg2+,. Zn2+ and FE2+ might not provide enough irritant to the fish to promote slime and benefit the plants at the same time and allow for less sodium chloride to be kept in the water.
I never got a firm answer from anyone but at one time I had asked if potassium chloride might be a better salt to use for nitrite protection while at the same time providing potassium to the system. See it is actually the chloride ion that can help bond with nitrite to protect the fish from nitrite poisoning to an extent but I wasn't sure if it had to be from Sodium Chloride or if it could come from something else like potassium chloride and leave the potassium available for the plants.
As I said, no one really answered me when I asked that years ago. I have used some potassium chloride in my old systems back before I found a local source where I could get seaweed extract.
Now I also know people who swear by using SEA 90 salt which is a dehydrated sea water from a arid location so most of the trace elements in the sea water are not lost to leaching and there fore the SEA 90 salt is a good source of all the stuff good sea water has in about the same ratios as sea water. I haven't used it myself so I can't really comment further.
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