Maximum copper?

[fish4me]

Question: How much copper is too much for corals?
Situation: I have extremely hard water at my house. TDS out of the faucet is over 700 ppm. I have an RO/DI system, which gets the TDS down to 6-12 ppm, although I go through new cartridges every 250 gallons or so. I've got several happy fish, and want to add my first corals, so just for grins I tested for copper. I'm at .1 ppm.

So, how much copper is too much for corals? Are there any products that really lower copper? Now that my levels are already at .1 ppm, am I just out of luck?
Thanks!

 

[ophiura]

Have you tried getting RO either from the LFS or from a machine at the grocery/watermill, etc and tested the copper?
In your case, it may be cheaper!!
I would recommend googling "copper holmes farley"

 

[sambasam]

0 copper none at all. its very toxic. it would be like yeah how much uranium should be in the air in my house. which should be none. try never to stick copper based materials or tap water with copper traces in it, in the tank.

 

[geoj]

In truth copper is a needed trace element but you should not be able to get a reading with most copper tests because they are calibrated for copper toxicity.

 

[fish4me]

I've got about 130 gallons of total tank volume, so if I had to lug water from a store, the tank would probably never get water changes.
I'm using a RedSea test kit that's designed to be used when medicating a tank, and the color is coming out between 0 ppm and .10 ppm. I decided to check just because I can't get TDS down to 0 with my RO/DI, and pretty much everything in our house that has standing water turns green, so I was assuming copper.

 

[ophiura]

Can you go buy some distilled water? Use the kit on distilled water, and it should be a reasonable "0." Some test kits have a false reading, if you will, and a "zero" will help you know what is really there. I would try this to be sure.

 

[fish4me]

That's a great idea, thanks!

 

[dragonzim]

With water that hard, have you considered getting a whole house water softener?

 

[srfisher17]

There is even some copper in Instant Ocean; by far the largest selling salt mix. If you've found the source and just need to lower the copper in your system; SeaChem cuprisorb does a great job removing copper, and can be repeatedly recharged.