Copper coated zinc in fish tank as substrate?

well, pennies to be more specific...

I was wondering if it is safe for the water...

I would like to use pennies instead of gravel in my tank- any consequences to this?

and fyi, penies are made of 97.5% zinc and coated with 2.5% copper...

I think it would look awesome...

 

I don't think either of those are aquarium safe.
Carol

 

well I think the pennies would lose there beauty over time from mineral and what not in the water...and I have read that copper is harmful to some fish..I can't tell you for sure though...I think some medicines or plant chemicals might have copper in them..but as I siad I'm not sure..please wait for more responses..

 

I wouldn't. Copper in sufficient amounts could kill your fish, and over time I am sure the pennies would leech sufficient amounts into the water. I am nto sure but what it could kill off your beneficial bacteria as well. Here is some info I found on a internet search...

Dangerous level of Copper for Shrimps is 0.03mg per litre.
Dangerous level of Copper for Algae and bacteria is 0.08mg per litre.
Dangerous level of Copper for Fish, snails and plants is 0.10mg per litre.

 

I have to admit though that's one of the more creative substrate ideas I have heard

 

I agree...very creative.

 

lol, yeah, I know its weird, but it would look pretty cool- the pennies lie flat when dropped in water (tried it in a bucket) so it looks like a golden under-sea atlantis or something...

and I would of course clean the pennies first- but I guess something else would have to do...

anyone know of any metals that are safe for aquariums?

 

Pennies are definitely a bad bad idea. I too thought it would look cool but I knew someone who killed their whole tank by adding a handful of pennies. I wouldn't recommend any metals for the aquarium. Though there a small bits of Stainless steel in things like your filter. (ie. the shaft of the impeller). Still I wouldn't go so far as to use more than that. You could go for glass beads of various colors. Then it would look like gems. Kind of similar treasure kind of idea.

 

huh... see its interesting that people are constantly tossing pennies, dims, nickels, etc into goldfish ponds and what not all the time... but they don't seem to die...

 

Goldfish ponds are larger in gallonage than you might imagine, which would dilute the effects. Ontop of that, are you sure they are not dieing? Government (state, county, city, federal) property that has ponds/fountains with fish in them are cleaned of dead fish bodies regularly and restocked. That is our tax dollars at work.

Pennies would leech enough copper into the water to kill your fish and cause birth defects in any fish that had fry before dieing. If you want the look of pennies in the tank so badly put pennies in under the tank, so that it appears that the pennies are in the tank, but aren't really in there.

OH! Gold coins won't harm the fish, and won't oxidize... A dime-sized coin for 400-500 US dollars, we would definitely envy your tank.

 

OH! Gold coins won't harm the fish, and won't oxidize... A dime-sized coin for 400-500 US dollars, we would definitely envy your tank.

That's awe inspiring just to picture in my head.


I mean wow! I can see it clearly lol. I'd be totaly dumb founded to see something like that.

 

yea, what a tank that would be!!!

 

hmmm, ok then, I guess I would have to settle for gold then...

*sigh* and I suppose I wouldn't be able to use anything less than 24k, right?

well, these will be some lucky $1.66 fish...

 

Lol. If you are going to shell out the dough, diamonds in the tank would be fine and provide more surfaces for algae to grow on.

lol. Glad you are taking this information against your penny idea in stride.

 

I think you could go less than 24k, but probably would want an analysis of the impurities.. diamonds would be better.. i'd recommend the naturally yellow stones.

 

yeah... I suppose I could go less than 24k, but then I wouldn't really know other metals are inside...

I suppose I could try to get some melting tools and make my own 18k, 14k, etc... but then again it wouldn't be as cool

and I am not too fond of diamonds, I don't want to cut the fishes up, maybe I will just use platinum bricks or something, that ought to look cool too...

 

Go for Platinum and Gold. Why not? Wait Is Platinum OK? Hmm I don't know. It's used in a lot of "catalyst" situations. The catalytic converter uses platinum to convert CO and unburned fuel from your car into CO2 and H2O vapor. Resiliant to corrosion though. At least according to the site I just scanned through real quick.lol

 

you could always go with uranium rods - then you wouldn't need a tank light and you could enjoy your 5-eyed fish.