Okay math time.

A toxic dose of copper is about .4 ppm

So say we have a 50g (190L) tank we need 76mg of copper to get to that point.

According to my Reef Trace bottle it has .032mg copper per ml.

So it would take 2375ml of Reef Trace to get to a toxic Level. That's 2.375L or .625g

If you follow the directions for on the bottle you would be dosing 12.5ml twice a week. So that's .4mg of Copper per dose. It would take 190 doses in order to get a toxic level of copper if you had no water changes or uptake by inhabitants. 95 weeks of dosing.

So let's say we are using Tropic Marin salt. According to the AWT salt study we have an average of .03mg/l of copper to start with. That's 5.7mg of copper in our 50g tank.

We add .8mg every week with our Reef Trace. Double that because maybe we are using Reef Plus too. Assume that the NLS adds twice as much as the Reef Trace just for fun and we have a total addition of 3.2mg per week.

Starting with 5.7mg from the salt and adding with this seriously ridiculous 3.2mg / week it would take 22 weeks to get to 76mg of copper if we had no export or uptake at all.

It's impossible.

I like the math. :) Although I'm sure it's safe to assume that daily exposure to copper would be damaging at a lower level than 0.4 ppm.

The link says we won't detect it on "our" kits, so what they're saying is hobby grade kits won't detect it. That can be true of most of the levels of the trace elements in additives. A laboratory should be able to tell us exactly how much copper is in the NLS food, it's just that NLS is running around the answer by distracting us with bogus excuses like our kits won't measure it. That's enough to satisfy most people to quit asking questions.

I don't agree with a lot of the logic that's going on right now. Quite clearly NLS does not have the ingredient "Copper" in there food it's some sort of ionic compound involving copper. Now look at the ionic bond of the most prevalent item needed for salt water... salt... NaCl... Sodium Chloride. Sodium is a highly reactive metal and Chlorine in its gaseous state is highly toxic but some how both of these "evil elements" work together to sustain life in our reef systems. Are you sure that your not all going on a Witch hunt because you see the word copper?

Are any of you chemists that have done studies on the effect of "Copper sulfate" or any other copper compounds on our reefs for that matter? If not, please stop accusing NLS (and every other company that has a copper compound in there ingredient list) of trying to kill our reefs, because that's just plain ridiculous.

Your telling me that for some reason, the people who provide the products so we can care for our reefs are adding copper so that our reefs crash so we stop using their product... :neutral:.

Besides;
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/7204/coppery.png
http://www.healthvitaminsguide.com/minerals/copper.htm
If a natural source of copper is shell fish (which is an invert) then it's safe to assume that the shell fish is storing it in its tissues, if copper is highly toxic by itself then it must be in some sort of compound. I have a feeling it's these types of compounds your finding in the NLS.

Well you're right about that but again inputs due to food are basically irrelevant.

Shimek found pretty significant impact on urchin larvae at .01ppm , issues with coral fertilization at 0.014 ppm and reduced feeding by nassarius snails at .05ppm

If we pick this level where invert or coral larvae are affected (.01ppm) we have a problem. Referring to the AWT salt study again we can see that there is only one salt (Kent) that has an average concentration of copper below our target when freshly mixed. All of the others are between .02ppm and .03ppm. One of the Kent samples was at .01ppm but the other dragged down the average.

What do we pick as a target if our salt mixes are already too high in the first place? Do we disregard the harm done to the most delicate larval life stages and pick an arbitrary level?


Copper sulfate is a bad example because that is the compound found in most copper treatments designed to be toxic to inverts. Copper bound to some sort of organic molecule is probably not toxic so your point is well taken.

I was bored and decided to poke around for more information on this and what I found will hopefully kill this discussion.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-0...ture/index.php

Tables two and three in this article list the copper concentrations found in some commonly used foods, here's some highlights:

Formula One 2.3ppm
Formula Two 1.8ppm
Brine Shrimp 1.3ppm
Plankton 10ppm
Nori 3.0ppm

Unfortunately NLS wasn't analyzed but let's face it there is a certain amount of copper in everything we add to our aquariums. It's not an issue specific to NLS at all.

Great post! Thanks for the link. This is very interesting information. I am interested that according the Randy Holmes-Farley, Kalk will actually purify itself if used properly. The Kalk when mixed up will precipitate the copper out. I have been considering adding a Kalk drip to my tank lately since it has been eating up the Calcium and Alk pretty quickly.

I think if you read my above reply you would note that I agreed with you. :)


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It's funny though that the more midgetwaiter posts information to support that copper input due to foods are irrelevant, the more I am wondering if Doug (fishytime) might be onto something with the "little bit here, little bit there" part. It seems like fish food in general must have a fair amount of copper just because the marine life added to the food often has significant amounts of copper in them, but it looks as though fish food is just one card in the deck.

I wonder in what ways Cuprisorb would be effective in my tank, as Randy-Holmes Farley suggests that the laboratory testing done on some of these products is irrelevant simply because it is tested on freshwater or plain artifical seawater, and often not tested in hobbyist reefs. Very interesting subject.

I'm starting to get on the boat with Doug in the theory about old tank syndrome, I wonder...

Dang, I wish I was rich and had a laboratory. If I was rich, that's what I would do. If I win the lottery one day you can bet there will be a reef laboratory built near me. It would satisfy my uber nerdy need for information. :redface:

Joe Yaiullo, one of the pioneers of reef keeping in the USA, and the curator/co-founder of Atlantis Marine World in NY has been feeding NLS (daily) in his reef tanks for the past 10 years. You can view his 20,000 gallon reef set up (the largest in NA, and 4th largest in the world) in the link below, where he also mentions feeding New Life Spectrum.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/2/aquarium

Joe is one of the world’s most highly regarded Aquarium authorities. He has consulted with many public Aquariums worldwide, and has also presented reef-keeping lectures throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.


Bob Fenner, who is widely known through his various published works on aquatics, as well as his wetwebmedia website, has stated that New Life Spectrum is a nutritionally complete food, to the point of it being the best food, period. http://wetwebmedia.com/foodsppt1.htm

Bob's bio can be found here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/WWMAdminS...ex/bobfbio.htm

Charles Delbeek M.Sc., senior biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco also feeds NLS at their facility. You can view Mr. Delbeek's bio in the following link.
http://www.jcdaquariumdesign.com/Pages/about_us.html

The gentlemen mentioned above are not only highly respected, very experienced long term reef keepers, they also hold one or more degrees in the various related sciences, and would most certainly never use anything in their systems that even had the potential to harm any type of life form.

Also, none of those individuals have any type of vested interest in New Life.






FYI - the form of copper used in all NLS formulas is copper proteinate, some of the older labels may show copper sulfate, but that form of copper hasn't been used for a couple of years or so. It's simply a case of older labels being used up instead of throwing out several thousand $$$ worth of labels. Not that it mattered either way with regards to this discussion (both forms are a non-issue at these levels), just thought I should point that out.


Also, please keep in mind that almost everything and anything can become toxic at high enough levels, including some vitamins. No nutritionist would recommend completely eliminating vitamin A, B, D, E and K from the diet just because at higher levels these substances can be toxic to a fish, yet this exact type of logic is what's used when some hobbyists discuss essential trace elements such as copper.




HTH