Hot Tap Water

[Skins]

I will never understand why we panic in this hobby about copper and other heavy metals. Unless you want to talk about specific poisonous heavy metals like lead or mercury. But if these are coming out of your tap above the safe legal limits then there are more important things to worry about then its effect on your fish. Copper, scary copper is a ESSENTIAL trace element for ALL living organisms. Your shrimp, fish, and you need copper to survive. If anyone was ever successful in completely removing copper from their aquarium every living thing in it would suffer, down to your beneficial bacteria. Luckily despite alot of peoples attempts to remove it from their water via various means like binding it up with Prime and using RO. You can not get rid of it completely. Most here probably never knew it but they add heavy metals including copper every time they feed their fish. Now you can all panic about the fish food poisoning your fish and inverts or you can finally realize maybe, just maybe those things are there for a reason. Quite a few other heavy metals are also essential trace elements: Iron, zinc, manganese, molybdenum, and cobalt. Iron, copper, and zinc are the ones often found in tap water, along with nickel which isn't essential or toxic but is important. Most of these are present in very trace levels in tap often measured in PPB(parts per billion).

Below is what comes out of my tap in PPM since its more familiar for most of us, we have a old gas water heater that stores the hot water in a enclosed metal tank. The water is from our well, house has copper pipes and is 30 years old. Water is run for a minuet or two before taking a testing sample.

Iron-0.002-0.3 PPM
copper- 0.001-0.13 PPM
Lead- 0.002-0.015 PPM

I don't add a single thing too my water except fertilizers, no dechlor or binding compounds. Hose from tap to tank 50% WC weekly with matched water temp. I breed cherry shrimp and have spawned a number of different species of fish in it. Now of course not all water is the same. Since we are focusing on copper here the max limit in drinking water in the US is 1.3 PPM. A high level like this will certainly be lethal to shrimp, but in all likely hood your water will be tasting like pennies too. All these elements have a lethal concentration that varies for each organism and is effected by other factors in the water. Again too little and too much can be a bad thing.

As far as food goes some like my Hikari lists the amount of copper it contains. Again these traces will not harm anything in the tank. Most foods don't list it in the analysis, but its right there in the ingredients list. Often its surrounded by the other heavy metal compounds. All the prepared fish foods I have ever looked at have some of these ingredients. Copper sulfate is what is added to food for supplying copper, it is almost always in fish food. Those familiar with compounds in this hobby will recognize this as a active-ingredient in many anti-ich/parasite medications(coppersafe is one). Again the only difference here is concentration and the fact that even your sensitive shrimp are not going to flop over at trace levels of copper and heavy metals. Its not even a issue for fish, because like stated above treating fish using copper is very common in this hobby. The rest of the common heavy metal ingredients in food are: ferrous sulfate(iron), Zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, and cobalt sulfate. Most all foods from tetramin to NLS have most of these.

So. What does it all mean? It means if your afraid, unsure, confused, ect... you can still do the regular procedures for heavy metal "removal". Since you feed them to the fish anyway. Plants may suffer though depending on tank setup. Or you can throw your hands up in the air like you just don't care.

Thankyou, i enjoyed that read.

 

[TATTIESCONE]

I have a combi boiler but when you run the hot tap the water comes out cloudy compared to the clear water from the cold tap is this still okay, i have been using the kettle up till now

 

[waterdrop]

I have a combi boiler but when you run the hot tap the water comes out cloudy compared to the clear water from the cold tap is this still okay, i have been using the kettle up till now

Interesting, maybe somebody knows about this. Perhaps very small bubbles? Does it go away if you put some in a jar and let it sit or do you see some sediment if you do that?

Enjoyed Mikaila's read - agree with that!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Skins]

I have a combi boiler but when you run the hot tap the water comes out cloudy compared to the clear water from the cold tap is this still okay, i have been using the kettle up till now

Interesting, maybe somebody knows about this. Perhaps very small bubbles? Does it go away if you put some in a jar and let it sit or do you see some sediment if you do that?

Enjoyed Mikaila's read - agree with that!

~~waterdrop~~

Mine was cloudy today but once it settles its ok.

 

[Mogs26]

I have a combi boiler but when you run the hot tap the water comes out cloudy compared to the clear water from the cold tap is this still okay, i have been using the kettle up till now

If you're still unsure-I had a minor panic when we had our boiler installed that the water from the hot tap looked more like milk However, I phoned the water company and they sai dit was to do with the speed with which the water is heated/boiled as it goes through the boiler (and something else to do with calcium, but that went over my head ) Totally harmless and if left it clears-and it doesn't taste like milk either, but what a saving I would make if it did!!!!
Carole x

 

[Aqua Tom]

Another member on her uses his Electricalh Heated shower to fill the buckets for a water change. A great idea that I will be using myself in the future.

 

[symon_say]

Here water from the tap comes about 25-26 C, but is a good idea so you don't change your water parameters that much.

 

[OldMan47]

I have read lots of posts from people who were worried about "combi boilers" and simply cannot relate to them at all. In the US, all water heaters commonly in use have a fiberglass lined water tank, so no contamination of the water with metals enters into the equation. We enjoy water that is relatively free of metals except the metals that are already present in the cold water. Our water heating systems do not add anything much to the water. That means we can treat hot water as simply a different temperature but chemically equivalent to cold water. For a fish keeper that makes things very simple.
I must yield to the expertise of those who actually need to deal with combi boilers and similar systems. They are the ones in a position to judge the impact of their systems.

 

[Skins]

I have read lots of posts from people who were worried about "combi boilers" and simply cannot relate to them at all. In the US, all water heaters commonly in use have a fiberglass lined water tank, so no contamination of the water with metals enters into the equation. We enjoy water that is relatively free of metals except the metals that are already present in the cold water. Our water heating systems do not add anything much to the water. That means we can treat hot water as simply a different temperature but chemically equivalent to cold water. For a fish keeper that makes things very simple.
I must yield to the expertise of those who actually need to deal with combi boilers and similar systems. They are the ones in a position to judge the impact of their systems.

In recent days i have stopped using water from my hot tap because of a device(A see through chamber with gate valves either side) that is located on the main water feed to the combi boiler.
What job does this device perform?

Keith.

 

[waterdrop]

I once read a UK novel (or short story, can't remember) in which two of the characters were old men in an old age care facility. They had endless conversations arguing over the merits and problems of different home heating systems. It was also quite amusing to the reader, if not endlessly so, lol. I feel a significant entertainment benefit of joining this UK-weighted forum has been to get to continue to learn the intricacies of what goes on within the british basement ...

 

[Aqua Tom]

<>
I feel a significant entertainment benefit of joining this UK-weighted forum has been to get to continue to learn the intricacies of what goes on within the british basement ...

Now that is a can of worms you realy dont want to open

 

[Mogs26]

<>
I feel a significant entertainment benefit of joining this UK-weighted forum has been to get to continue to learn the intricacies of what goes on within the british basement ...

Now that is a can of worms you realy dont want to open

Lol! I don't have a basement-it used to all go on in the loft before we got a condensing boiler! What an exciting life we lead!

 

[waterdrop]

Yea, somehow lofts did lend added excitement

 

[Skins]

In my plumbing days there were plenty of days spent in a loft