Water Conditioners & Dechlorinators Part 2

Originally Posted by rjordan390

<I think the epa allowable is 1300 or 1100 ro 1000 ppm or so.>

Not exactly; You forgot to add the decimal point. EPA allows no more then 1.3 ppm copper in drinking water. There is also secondary standard which is not enforceable which the States are encourage to go by. And that is 1 ppm copper.
So the average in most cities would be 0.25 ppm or 250 ppb.

Originally Posted by beaslbob

From what I understand those levels (.18ppm) is harmful to saltwater corals and other inverts not the fish.

An old article on a famous board reported that the at tap copper levels in 3/4's of the cities in the U.S. had copper levels of .250ppm or less.

I think the epa allowable is 1.300 ppm or so.

A world health origanization studying the copper effects on corals had a paragraph on bioaccumulation of copper by marco algaes. In that study the macros were reported to be exposed to varying levels of copper up to .250ppm. And then the copper was measured in the macro algaes. At .250ppm the macros rose from something like .030ppm to 1.020ppm in two weeks. The bioaccumulation was linear to the concentration being used. So half levels in the water meant half levels of copper in the macros. After the two weeks equilibruim had not been reached and the macros were still accumulting more copper.

So yes live plants or in that case macro algae can consume the copper and very heavily.

But for a fish tank it simply is nothing to worry about.

A coral reef tank with delicate corals is another case.

Plus one thing to do is to simply use the cold water faucet and let it run for 30 seconds or so before collecting. That limits the copper in the water.

I go even further by just topping off so I'm not adding copper back into the tank.

My 55g mixed reef tank had a very heavy bioload with numerous "easy" type soft corals for years. Not so good with the few sps type I tried though.

my .02

Originally Posted by rjordan390

Quote from Seachem.
< Prime detoxifies heavy metals by precipitating them out of solution, where they are no longer available. They will not become available again unless the pH drops to a level that is not reasonable for any aquarium environment (<5.0). Copper is extremely toxic to invertebrates and will build up to toxic levels in plants, as they do not utilize it quickly enough.>

Well ok, that takes care of the detox question. I did some searching and came across a few scientific studies and plants have no problem taken up heavy metals in the soil. So I see no reason our aquarium plants cannot do the same. But the rate of absorbtion is differant for many plants. Now this is an area for the science people and I do not want to go there. So there a distinct possibility that plants can accumulate more then they can use. We all know what happens when we over eat.

it appears that to be on the safe side, then use a dechlorinator that has heavy metals removal and then depend on your trace elements dose to maintain a safe level of heavy metals.

Originally Posted by Byron

Things are going a bit far afield in this thread. And I am a bit puzzled by Seachem's reply, since it is quite different from what they specifically told me when I asked about Prime and Flourish together.

I think common sense may be best. If you are on municipal tap water, in NA, the levels of heavy metals must by law be no greater than "x" level. Use a water conditioner that "detoxifies" heavy metals, as most do. If you use Flourish Comprehensive, dose it the following day.

As 1077 pointed out, those of us that have been doing this for 20+ years have not seen any adverse effects.

Byron.

Originally Posted by rjordan390

I did not mean to imply that trace elements are to be dose at the same time and I seem to recall that Seachem recommended dosing trace elements the day after using Prime; is that correct? Their website indicates the same on their dosing chart.