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Flourite in a shrimp tank?
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:30 pm
by Tai95
I've just set up a greenhouse and plan on growing my own plants. I was planning on using Flourite as a substrate and keeping shrimp in these tanks to keep algae at bay. After looking at the contents of flourite it contains 17mg/kg of copper. If I used 5kg of Flourite per 10gal. that would be about 85 mg of copper in the tank. Wouldn't this be deadly to shrimp? I searched the forums and couldn't find an answer. Thanks in advance.
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 1:08 am
by Kenshin
I am using Flourite myself in my shrimp tanks (close to a year now) - RCS, snowball shrimps, green shrimps, and Rusty Macro. without any problems. All of them are breeding and living very happily
. I believe the copper found in Flourite is copper sulfate which is not harmful and is utilized by plants. If it is just copper ion, then I believe it would pose a toxic/fatal problem for shrimps and other organisms. I hope this helps.
copper sulphate
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:20 am
by badflash
Many algae killers contain copper sulphate and there is a warning on these that they are not safe for crustaceans. If there is copper in this is must be in an insoluable state and not is something like copper sulphate which is very soluable.
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 1:59 pm
by Tai95
Thanks for the replies. I've sent an e-mail to Seachem and am waiting on there response. I did find that a few people here use it with no problems. I was just trying to make sure that is was absolutely safe. This will be a pretty big investment for me, and I don't want to make any foolish mistakes.
Seachem response
Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:31 am
by Tai95
I sent Seachem an E-mail about the copper in Flourite and this is what they had to say.
Flourite, like most naturally mined rocks, will contain traces of copper as copper is a naturally occurring trace mineral. The copper in this material is insoluble and will not go into solution so it will not affect any of your aquarium inhabitants. Also, copper (in small trace quantities) is essential for life as it is important in many aspects like electron transport, plasma production, & it is a constituent of many enzymes. This is why our Flourish contains small trace quantities of copper.
Best Regards,
Seachem Technical Support,rb~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seachem Laboratories, Inc.
http://www.seachem.com 888-SEACHEM
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