Is copper dangerous to koi?

[Lam Nguyen]

Just curious to know if copper is dangerous to koi. The reason why I am asking is because I just realized that all the water pipework in my house is made of copper. Also, I am trying to connect a pipe from one of the house copper pipe out to my pond so I can have a constant trickle without using the waterhose and I don't know if I should use copper pipes or pvc pipes. Any help is much appreciated.

[PapaBear]

JN should be chiming in on this shortly. You WILL want to protect them from the copper...

[Fishbreeder]

The toxicity of metallic copper is going to be related to your water chemistry. The softer the water, the more toxic.

As a general rule, copper is extremely toxic to koi. Many species can withstand much greater amounts than koi.

I'd try an eliminate any and all sources of copper from the koi pond. I know of some cases where the main water line had to be bypassed (with pvc) in order for koi to be able to live in the water.

Brett

[JasPR]

yep, depending on it's form- moderately to deadly. Unlike goldfish that will die in very low concentrations, koi might live on , albeit depressed, but are being damaged continually. This leads to deaths from 'other things' but at the heart of it is the copper damage/stress. Copper is part of a koi's system and some copper is found in water and in the fish's diet in 'healthy' forms and concentrations. But this is different than copper in the water column from copper piping, algacides, chelated copper meds, and leeching heat exchangers in heated systems- that is typically very deadly. JR

[MCA]

Lam,

Send in a water sample to a regional lab and have an analysis performed. Be sure to tell them this is for fish...not for human consumption. The reason being that we humans can take higher concentraitons of heavy metals than our finned friends. Note that toxocity varies with pH of the water.

Copper kill levels in soft water: 0.03-0.7ppm
Copper kill levels in hard water: 0.6-6.4ppm

Copper max levels you should allow in pond: <0.006ppm

[Lam Nguyen]

Thanks for the excellent info guys. This may explain why my koi haven't been extremely active like koi in my friends' ponds or the dealers' ponds. They haven't been sick and I haven't lost any koi to sickness yet (knock on wood), but they haven't been extremely active and I haven't been getting the kind of growth that I would like (despite feeding Saki Hikari Growth 2-3x/day & Izeki once every other day). I have tried everything from changing 10% water daily (using proper amounts of dechlorinator ofcourse) to adding tons of aeration (don't have DO measurements but should be high given all the airstones in there. In fact, here are my water parameters:

pH: always between 6.8 - 7.2
Temp: 72.1 yesterday
Salt: 0.25%
GH: 60-80
KH: 80-120
Ammonia: trace
Nitrite: trace
Nitrate: very low (can't remember the reading)
TDS: no measurement device but on my wishlist
DO: no measurement device but on my wishlist

Brett, as you can see my watersource is very soft. In fact, I have to add something (I can't remember the name of the chemical since I am at work) to increase the GH because the watersource has no GH at all. Funny, after I posted this thread I went outside and started digging a 1' deep line from the house to the pond to bury the copper pipework. Guess I will have to cover it back up, then find the source of the water and see if I can connect PVC from there. My back yard is going to be a work of art by the time I am done with the pond.

PapaBear, I remember JN posting images of koi being burned by copper but I couldn't find it using the search engine. If it wasn't for my friend coming over and asking me why I have all of the copper pipes in my garage I wouldn't have known. Whew!

Thanks JR & Mike, I will see if I can send in a sample to one of the labs in the area. I will also try and see if I can find a chart of what's in my source water, too.

[PapaBear]

If you go to JN's personal web page (the link is in his sig) you can read the whole story on his copper woes.

[MCA]

You ph range is what would worry me. copper and most other metals will leach more, and are more toxic in acidic water. One thing you might water to consider is getting a whole house filter and put that on the line or hose that fills the pond. The filter would be in two stages. First stage is a mechanical fitler that will typically do down to ~5micron. The second stage is an activated carbon block (not chunks of carbon) unit. The carbon stage will take out chlorine/chlorime, and some of any dissolved minerals such as copper. It could be a good investment.

examples: Big Blue Water Filters Housings

[Lam Nguyen]

Excellent advice Mike. I will definitely look into that since I don't want to have to find the main water line and start using PVC pipe from there cuz then if I do then you guys won't see me posting on this forum for the next couple of months as I will be busy digging a 100' deep drench (?) to bury my pvc pipe. Also, I don't think that my wife will be happy with that, esp considering she thinks that I am too kichi already.

Thanks for the info PapaBear, will look at JN's website as soon as time avails.

[jnorth]

See sig....they weren't burned...they were dead. Play it safe and get your water tested in the pond and out of your tap where you fill the pond.