# Copper pipes and keeping shrimp



## aman74 (Nov 13, 2006)

Hi all, I'm new here and have been enjoying reading through all the posts for a couple of weeks now. I'm experienced with aquariums and tropical fish, but not with plants and shrimp.

I'm most likely going to set up a shrimp tank and try my hand at breeding them. I'd like to try CRS or some Pearls, but can't find much on the Pearls.

With invertebrates in general I know they are sensitive to chemicals and metals in the water. I saw one post that said you can't keep them if you have copper pipes. I'm not even sure yet if that's what we have in our building, but I'm going to look soon. If we do are shrimp a no go? I would have thought that running the water first would eliminate the problem...that's assuming that it takes some time for the heavy metals to leach into the water, but I may very well be wrong.

It also seems that copper pipes would be very common to alot of people, certainly copper fittings abound.

Thanks!

Anthony


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Almost all houses built since the 1950's have copper piping for water service. And, the public water systems use copper piping for water supply lines coming into the house. As long as the water is kept at a pH above 7 the copper will not be a problem - if the pH is lower, the copper is slowly dissolved and the pipes can fail, which is why water companies keep the pH above 7. If you run the water for a few minutes before using it in the tank, it is highly unlikely that there will be excessive copper in it. I have cherry red shrimp, I have copper pipes, and I run the water a few minutes before adding a full tank's worth of it. I have no problem keeping shrimp alive.


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## YuccaPatrol (Mar 26, 2006)

Yes, most of us do have copper pipes. The best plan is to only use COLD water and do not use any water that has run through your water heater because the heating process can increase the amount of dissolved metals in the water.

Many of the good dechlorinators also detoxify heavy metals, so that is some added insurance.


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## southpark (Oct 9, 2006)

unless you live in a really old house or use potentially contaminated well/ground water..

normal practice is to use cold water, and if you're excessively worried you can test for Cu, or simple used distilled/ro water from the grocery store.. a shrimp tank need not be larger than 10 or 20gal so filling a 5gal bottle a few times a week to start your tank probably won't kill you..

personally i'd recommend getting a few (5) shrimp, and putting them in a test tank with your tap water... if there is excessive Cu they'll all proceed to croak farily shortly (within a week i'd say)..

also a key indicator of stress with shrimp is not feeding, and possibly with swimming rapidly around the tank as if doing laps (or attempting to escape toxic water conditions), stressed shrimp will also rush for the surface and attempt to get out of the water.. so if you see any of these signs.. i can indicate your water conditions are not ideal.. 

keep in mind these stress indicators can also be triggered by high nitrite/nitrate/ammonia levels or low oxygen levels.. test with really cheap ghost shrimp if you believe you're at risk of poisoning your shrimp.. they should respond the same way cherry shrimp (or other pricier shrimp) would.


and you can probably safely top off with faucet water..


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## southpark (Oct 9, 2006)

fyi, the shrimp marathon thing, as amusing as it is, is frightening

i moved a piece of driftwood from an established fish tank to my shrimp tank, and noticed later in the day that there were a hundred shrimp swimming rapidly in a lap around the shrimp tank, it was funny to watch, but i immediately tested the water and found that nitrite levels had spiked, so after 2 or 3 water changes the shrimp went back to eating and stopped training for the tour de france..

i wish i had gotten a video.. 20 or 30 shrimp would sprint by at a time past the front of the tank in a large group.. like little torpedoes.. scary


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## YuccaPatrol (Mar 26, 2006)

Ghost shrimp may not be a good test because the majority of them seem to arrive at the stores in terrible condition because they have been treated as live food rather than animals someone would want to keep for a while. It might be hard to tell which ones died because of your water and which ones died because of their poor treatment by the wholesaler and retailer.

Most ghost shrimp I have bought have died rather quickly even though my water is fantastic for my other shrimp species.


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## MrSanders (Mar 5, 2006)

you can very easily always hook up an inline carbon filter, those used for Ice machines etc., to the hose you fill your tank with. that would handle copper and many other things...

also just a piece of Info, At a local club auction I bought a bottle of pond trace fert as pitty big for a buck. I only quickly looked at the iron content seeing that it was half of the amount in flourish. So i started using it once a week on a low tech 10 gallon cherry shrimp tank, at the rate of 10ml a week. This went on for 2 months.

One day i was bored comparing the rest of the elements in the trace mix and I noticed that yes there was half the amount of Iron that is in flourish.... But this trace mix also for some odd reason had twice the amount of copper as flourish. Again this was a low tech tank so NO waterchanges have been done on it. No shimp have died they are fine and healthy... in fact breeding at that. 

I wouldnt be all to worried about copper leaching from your pipes killing your shrimp


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## Purrbox (Jun 1, 2006)

It's also good to note that just because your shrimp are swimming laps around your tank, doesn't always mean something's wrong. If it's just the males, then quite likely one of the females is ready to mate and the males are just trying to find her.


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## southpark (Oct 9, 2006)

no, it was the nitrites, and by shrimp swimming laps, i mean there were about 150+ shrimp and juveniles doing laps it wasn't normal behavior by far, after 2 and a half water changes using the python nitrites were back down to 0.5ppm or less levels and the shrimp settled

yeah, i like to keep ghost shrimp because they eat leftover fish food and crushed snails much better than the cherries seem to do, i tend to lose 2-3 out of 20 the first day or two, and usually the rest live out their natural lives.. or until a fish gets them..


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## aman74 (Nov 13, 2006)

southpark said:


> unless you live in a really old house or use potentially contaminated well/ground water..
> 
> normal practice is to use cold water, and if you're excessively worried you can test for Cu, or simple used distilled/ro water from the grocery store.. a shrimp tank need not be larger than 10 or 20gal so filling a 5gal bottle a few times a week to start your tank probably won't kill you..


What do you mean by filling? Are there stores you can bring your own jug to to lower the costs instead of buying the pre-bottled stuff? Sorry, just not sure what you are referring to.

Good advice here from all! Thanks everyone, doesn't sound like there's anything to worry about and I've never had a problem in the past, I thought it was odd to see someone say that you can't keep shrimp with copper pipes since they are so common... I'm going to see what we have, but like someone said the water plant uses them so I don't see how it will matter.


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## Purrbox (Jun 1, 2006)

southpark said:


> no, it was the nitrites, and by shrimp swimming laps, i mean there were about 150+ shrimp and juveniles doing laps it wasn't normal behavior by far, after 2 and a half water changes using the python nitrites were back down to 0.5ppm or less levels and the shrimp settled


I wasn't suggesting that in your situation it wasn't a stress response. I just wanted to clarify for others who are new to keeping shrimp that the males do laps to find the female when mating, so that if the shrimp are doing laps it isn't *always* a bad thing. Certainly if your entire shrimp population starts doing laps, then there is a problem that you need to solve immediately.


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