Check your fish food for copper!

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ZorroNet

ZorroNet

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I know, it sounds crazy, but some brands of fish food contain copper. It's usually in the form of copper sulfate, and it can wipe out your inverts at the gut level!

I was feeding my fish, shrimp, and snails Wardley sinking shrimp pellets and flakes (Sorry to call you out by name, Wardley) and I noticed I was having a hard time with the population thinning... it wasn't obvious at first. When I noticed the inverts dying (fry first) I started testing water quality very frequently. Hundreds of baby assassin snails were everywhere, then they were less and less visible. Shrimp fry started disappearing. Shrimp never bred (RCS). However, water quality was perfect. I was baffled until someone here said something about testing for copper, and then it hit me that the only way copper could be getting in the tank was by something I was putting in. Ingredient check!

I tossed the food, and put in a Seachem CupriSorb sachet to soak up any resident copper left in the water. Now I check the ingredient list EVERY TIME I buy food. You never know when a company is going to change their formula even. Everything is back to normal for me now, and I hope that my posting this helps others.
 
Star_Rider

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FYI, most homes have some copper pipe.. which can leach/erode from the pipes. it falls within the 'safe' guidlines for consumption in most cases but some folks sensitive to copper may not tolerate those levels.
I am unsure the effects on inverts but I now use RO/DI water .. I can reconstitute it with buffers or mix it with tap to reduce the amount

but it's good to know that the copper in food may have contributed when I had a crash in my Cherry shrimp tank.
I switched food as well but noticed a increase in population after I started mixing RO with tap
 
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Narwhal72

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Copper is a necessary nutrient for fish AND invertebrates which is why it is found in fish food. It is also found in very, very trace amounts and if you consider the amount of food added to your tank in any given month is only going to provide a negligable amount of copper that would be undetectable in a test kit.

Excessively high levels of copper are far more likely to be coming from your tap water than anything.

I would do a little more investigation into your tap water before you started blaming fish food.

Andy
 
ZorroNet

ZorroNet

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I don't dispute what you say about the pipes... I know that is true. In my case the tank is at my business, and I did all the plumbing in the building myself, so I KNOW for sure it's all done with PVC under the building and stainless steel fittings at the sinks :)

Even though it's not an issue for me, it's a valid point to bring up for others that copper pipes can and will leach a certain amount of copper into the water that flows through them. It's usually minimal in cold water pipes and higher in hot water pipes if I understand it correctly.
 
Fractalis

Fractalis

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Narwhal72 said:
Copper is a necessary nutrient for fish AND invertebrates which is why it is found in fish food. It is also found in very, very trace amounts and if you consider the amount of food added to your tank in any given month is only going to provide a negligable amount of copper that would be undetectable in a test kit.

Excessively high levels of copper are far more likely to be coming from your tap water than anything.

I would do a little more investigation into your tap water before you started blaming fish food.

Andy
Click to expand...
indeed it is a component in many inverts blood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemocyanin
 
ZorroNet

ZorroNet

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This is a widely debated topic in shrimp keeping. Given that we know that too much copper is bad for inverts just like too much arsenic is bad for humans but we can consume a small amount without detriment. Would we risk eating something we know contains arsenic in any amount knowingly? I think not. So I will not be feeding my shrimp anything with copper in it knowingly just in case.
 
ZorroNet

ZorroNet

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Chrisinator said:
Is there a way to dilute/remove copper or would RO solve this problem?
Click to expand...
CupriSorb will absorb it from the water if you place it in a high flow area. Fortunately it can also be regenerated and it's non chemical... just a material that attracts the copper to form a bond with it. RO removes pretty much everything from the water... which is not always what you want because like StarRider said, you have to supplement minerals back into the water or it is void of them.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...eASIN=B0002A5VWK&linkCode=as2&tag=teamdave-20
 
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Narwhal72

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I think you are missing the point. It's not that you can consume a small amount without detriment. It's that they need to consume small amounts to stay healthy.

I would say that feeding foods that do not contain copper is probably causing more harm than good but the truth is that even if it is not on the label the food probably still contains copper as a natural contaminant. It's only required to be on the label if it is intentionally added.

So it doesn't make much difference either way.

Andy
 
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