[APD] RE: Heated water

["Eric Wahlig" <ewahlig at earthlink_net>]

I have soft water also; buffered up by the water municipality to 3 degrees
GH and only chlorine as a disinfectant so I pretty much follow the same
method as Rachel. I live in a condo complex and we have replaced 2 of the 3
or 4 large water heaters within the last year. I might be concerned about
the leaching of copper from these for certain aquarium setups but they see
a lot of continuous use and because the plumbing is not insulated, it takes
several minutes of running the tap to get the water temperature to
stabilize. The cold water starts out at room temperature but gets very warm
then cools off a little then warms up again before finally going cold. The
hot water takes a while to finally get up to a stable hot temperature.
Controlling the temperature is the trickiest part and I have to monitor it
closely as the tank is being filled as it still tends to slowly drift. This
may be because the single lever faucet is old and is starting to wear out.
So, I think that new copper plumbing might be a concern if the water sat in
contact with it for a long time but not a problem if fresh water is moving
through it or you flush any standing water. This could be a problem with
single family home water systems where you could easily flush the cold
water lines simply by running the cold water tap but you wouldn't want to
flush the hot water lines by draining and refilling the hot water heater.
If you are concerned about the possibility of copper contamination I'd use
a little Seachem Prime or similar product. Normally, with freshwater
planted aquaria, I am not concerned with copper but I might be if I was
running a reef/invert setup.  

---Eric


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