Tape water and copper piping

[rabbie]

All the piping in my home is copper piping will this be a problem? The thing is that the water supply to my home is very good (every low nitrate >5ppm and things). I was planing to use the water straight for the tap(not filtered). I did keep fresh water shrimps and they lived in the tank for about a year, had remove them because they eat all my small fish (neons and things like that). That tank was running for about a year before the shrimps where added to it. I will be keeping corals don't know which yet But will this be a problem?

 

[liquid]

I suspect it probably will be a problem. Here's a question: do you want to take the chance? I'd be playing it safe and look into purchasing a quality RO/DI unit...

Shane

 

[DK]

To answer your question, if your house is more than a couple of years old, I seriously doubt that copper would be available in the water. You could always test for it. As LiquidShaneo has suggested, get the RO/DI unit. Why have any nitrates(silicates etc.) in your new water?? With relatively good water quality going in, the filters and membrane should last a long time.

 

[esmithiii]

Test for Cu. I doubt that you will get a noticible reading. I think in the long run your nitrates in the water will be the biggest problem. I assume you mean that the nitrates in the tap water read less than 5ppm (nitrates <5ppm) instead of greater than 5 ppm.

Let's suppose the following as an example:

<ul type="square">[*] Tank Size of 75 gal[*] Weekly evaporation rate of 2 gallons[*] Monthly water changes of 20% (15 gal.)[*] Monthly nitrate production of 2 ppm[*] Your local water supply has only 3 ppm nitrates.
[/list]

After 12 months, your nitrates would be at 12 ppm.

Just something to think about. If you limit the water changes to just 15%, the nitrates would climb to 14ppm after 12 months.

Increasing the evaporation rate will only make matters worse! I get close to 15 gal. a week on my 180!

I would be happy to e-mail you the excel spreadsheet I used to calculate the dilution curve. The thing to isolate is how much nutrients are in your local water supply.

I would also check other trace contaminants such as heavy metals and phosphates.

Ernie