Copper in water

[Ben]

What everyone's opinion of copper in their water?

Are you concerned and don’t use water that comes through a copper pipe or have never found it to be of any harm to aquarium fish?

I just used a copper test kit and had a reading of 0.15 PPM.

I am aware that copper in water can be dangerous to those keeping marine's.

Most often than not, levels of copper found in water comes from copper hot water services or hot water running through copper pipes.

What's a dangerous level for freshwater tropical fish? And what are the affects copper poisoning has on fish.

Considering water changes are the most important factor in keeping fish this subject does not seem to be highly regarded and discussed.

I remember 20 odd years ago my father kept a 6-foot community tank, he never used water that came from the hot water service and swore if it was used all the fish would die.

[seecuta]

Ben, do you run hot water into your tanks? or is that 0.15 ppm reading from normal cold water.

I personally will NEVER add hot water to any of my tanks but ive heard of a few that do especially with discus and their discus seems to be ok.
From my understanding the level of tolerance to copper depends on the fish, discus being fairly hardy whilst most of your catfish wont.

However i do urge everybody to not use straight hot water from their hot water systems.

[Robdog]

I was under the impression that water conditioners such as Prime etc served to detoxify heavy metals of which I assume includes copper. Have you tested the water with and without conditioner? That would be interesting as I suppose it should be a concern.

[Phlipper]

I've been running hot water mixed with cold into all my tanks for many years now and never had a problem at all, the average fish seem to tolerate the small amount of copper that may come through the taps, and a bit of common sense needed, and I believe good quality water aging chemicals, these claim to neutralise metals anyway ?

Always run the taps to waste for a minute to clear any possible sediment from the pipes first, then into your tank. Your copper pipes I think may only be of concern in possibly an older home where the old piping is heavily corroded, but even then run some to waste before use and it should be ok, always worked for me 8-) All my fish are healthy and I have never had a problem, including all my breeding stock.

Possibly it may be unwise to use hot water through copper pipes, but I think for the sake of convenience it's worth the risk, if there is risk at all, I guess try it and see how it all goes.

[Waldo]

If you have just regular fish in your tanks copper wont be a problem. It's not good for crustatia, armored, or scaless fish.

[samir]

i used to add hot water from the tap but i've stopped now. i have old copper pipes, and while i was using hot water i had a massive snail infestation, so i guess if they were ok, it wouldnt be enough to bother the fish.

[aquaholic]

I am with phlipper on this topic.
I am a newbie at the discus keeping but started 10 months ago with six 50 cent size discus who are now around the four and half inch mark and two spawning pairs(ok so one pair are gay)and have used the hot water out of the tap mixed with mainly cold water.
yes it would be nice to know if bens reading was from hot or could tap and is there a difference.

cheers andrew