# how harmful is copper proteinate to shrimp?



## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

hi, I recently found out that my HBH Veggie flake food contains Copper proteinate that i have been feeding to my community fish. How harmful would this be to my cherry shrimps? has anyone had problems with this product before?


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

You should be okay, copper in food is not as bad as copper in water. Most fish/shrimp food contain copper anyway, as it is also one of the elements required by shrimp growth.


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

thank you randy for the prompt reponse, i was worried that this could have been the problem to my sunkist's death.


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

Even fresh spinach contain copper as do most ferts that people use in tanks. The source of the "copper is bad with shrimp" things comes from probably more people keeping community tanks with fish and shrimp, their fish get ich or some other disease that they use a copper based treatment on, the shrimp died, therefore copper is bad. 

The part that most don't take away from that is those medications are high, high doses of copper. Thousands of times of what you would find in food, and it's added to the water so instead of it being ingested through food and only staying in the shrimp digestive system and their bodies extract some for their needs, it's in the water, which the shrimp are forced to "breath in", making it probably more harmful.

Just like humans, many things are essential for us in small amounts but large amounts can kill us quickly. Few drops of bleach in our water supply, kills all bacteria and prevents ecoli and other outbreaks. Drink a bottle and you're probably dead within the hour.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Even water itself can be fatal if consumed in large enough quantities in a short enough time. So can salt and many other things we would normally consider to be completely harmless.


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