New Life Spectrum fish food and copper

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by Slick Fork

I've fed NLS pellets in my various tanks every other day since June of 2006 when the 10 gallon began my SW adventure. So, some of my rock is now 3 years with this "copper" and I have yet to see any ill effects. I don't have any plans on discontinuing it's use.

This "copper Proteinate" is probably chemically completely different then the copper everyone worries about in their tanks.

"Probably"?...The ingredient listed on the label is "copper sulfate" not "copper protienate" (at least on my label). What constitutes a trace amount, and what trace of copper is acceptable to add to your reef? That to me is like saying "here have some soup, there is only a trace amount of rat poison in it." Or "you dont need to wash that apple, it only has a trace of pesticides on it".

The copper that is contained in salt, I have no control over...but I do have control over what I put in as far as food goes.

Would you use a tank that has had copper meds in it?....How much copper can silicone absorb?.....cant be too much ....probably a "trace"....but we wouldnt do that, would we? Why not throw a penny in the sump? That would only leach a trace amount back in to the tank. My point is, why would you even want to risk knowingly adding a food that contains copper when there are other high quality dry foods that dont have copper listed as an ingredient? We spend thousands, on getting our tanks the way we want them, only to play Russian roulette with a $20 fish food. *wonders how many (if any) tank crashes that have been blamed on OTS, are really something like this*

You all can do what you want with your fish, but personally I wont be using NLS in my reef. I will continue to warn people about NLS so they can at the very least make an informed decision about weather or not they want to keep on feeding it to their fish.

[Myka]

It's not like rat poison though...that's a poor example. Copper is needed in the body's normal functions. Of course an overdose is detrimental. A better comparison would be to red wine. Sure, a glass a week is actually quite good for you, but you can kill yourself by ingesting it everyday.

Although I am interested in the OLS theory. I would just like NLS to confirm an actual amount of copper present.

[Treebeard]

Oh crap! I'm a goner!

Originally Posted by Myka

A better comparison would be to red wine. Sure, a glass a week is actually quite good for you, but you can kill yourself by ingesting it everyday.

Although I am interested in the OLS theory. I would just like NLS to confirm an actual amount of copper present.

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by Treebeard

Oh crap! I'm a goner!

, you and me both

Originally Posted by midgetwaiter

So you didn't read the link then....

They don't provide a number because it's below the detection threshold.

Other things on my fish self that are labeled as containing copper:

Seachem Reef Trace
Seachem Reef Plus
Fauna Marin Ultra Organic
Salt (4 kinds)
Balance Blocks

It's a common trace element, nothing to see here.

See this is what Im getting at....a little bit here, a little bit there...a little bit in the food and suddenly its not such a little amount anymore.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by fishytime

See this is what Im getting at....a little bit here, a little bit there...a little bit in the food and suddenly its not such a little amount anymore.

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.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by fishytime

You all can do what you want with your fish, but personally I wont be using NLS in my reef. I will continue to warn people about NLS so they can at the very least make an informed decision about weather or not they want to keep on feeding it to their fish.

So you didn't read the link then....

They don't provide a number because it's below the detection threshold.

Other things on my fish self that are labeled as containing copper:

Seachem Reef Trace
Seachem Reef Plus
Fauna Marin Ultra Organic
Salt (4 kinds)
Balance Blocks

It's a common trace element, nothing to see here.

[Myka]

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.

Originally Posted by midgetwaiter

So you didn't read the link then....

They don't provide a number because it's below the detection threshold.

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.

[Zoaelite]

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.

See this is what Im getting at....a little bit here, a little bit there...a little bit in the food and suddenly its not such a little amount anymore.

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... .

[Zoaelite]

Besides;

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.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by Myka

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.

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?

Originally Posted by zoaElite

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.

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.