Ive been warned off aquarium salts that contain sodium hexocyanoferrate. Why is this?
The additive sodium hexocyanoferrate is an anti-caking agent and is designed to make salt free-flowing. Without an anti-caking agent, salt tends to take up moisture from the air and form hard lumps which are harder to dissolve. Most fishkeeping writers, myself included, have advised against the use of salt containing this – but I’d bet money on none of them knowing the reason why. I certainly didn’t know why this stuff was said to be potentially toxic. Sodium hexocyanoferrate contains cyanide! Run-off from roadside salt storage facilities, which contain salt containing sodium hexocyanoferrate used for salting icy roads, have been found by Ohno (1990) to contain high levels of cyanide! Cyanide is toxic to fish at high levels, which is why its use to catch marine fish is frowned upon. I’ve been unable to find any evidence in the journals which show that this is harmful to fish in the low levels that are likely to occur in the aquarium. Most suppliers of bulk tonic salt label their produc
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