>
>We recently inherited a building for use as a fish lab.  The building is
>supplied with untreated well water, but it has a lot of copper pipe and
>copper levels high enough to kill fish.  We have been bouncing around
>several ways to improve water quality in terms of fish care.  Does anyone
>have any experience using filters or other water treatment for dealing with
>this problem?  I am tempted to  replace the problem sections with PVC, but
>want to explore other solutions.  Thanks for any assistance you can provide.
>
>
>
>"Laissez les bons temps rouler!"
>Paul Leberg
>University of Southwestern Louisiana
>


Look at it this way:

                1) Your water chemistry is such that a significant
                level of copper mobilizes (pretty soft???).

                This is a fact of life, and something not easily
                corrected.

                2) Your copper plumbing is donating sufficient
                free copper that it is toxic to fish.


                The PROBLEM is CAUSED by the water chemistry
                (hard to fix) and the copper plumbing (easy to
                fix, but maybe not cheap).

                A SYMPTOM of the PROBLEM is the mobilized
                copper which kills your fish.

Sure you can create/buy different filtering mechanisms which will remove the
copper, BUT, the copper will always be out there, just waiting for a filter
failure to sweep in and wreak havoc.  Any filtering system will be treating a
symptom.

If you strip the copper plumbing and put in PVC, you have removed the ultimate
cause of the problem.   If you are looking at a long-term facility, the cost of
new plumbing will be worth it.

As I always tell my fish path students,  "never take an aspirin for a gunshot."

Well, that's my $0.02.

Bill


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     *  William Snyder, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences   *
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