Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

does anyone know if aluminium would be okay for a fish tank? Leaching issues etc?

I'd steer clear. I think the jury is out on the whole altsheimers (sp?) thing, but better safe than sorry I reckon.

I had a friend who was losing her memory, blamed it on the aluminium she was getting poisoned by from the 30 cans of emu bitter she consumed a day lol

will dig around

could not have been the 30 emus, akahol doesn't damaged ya body.
Nah

could be a good thing if it made the fish lose their memory, they would wanna eat all the time and wouldn't remember it was bad when the net came hovering over

From what I've read about it so far it isn't much to be worried about; I would use aluminum in parts of a system but I probably wouldn't use it for an entire tank.

The Alheimer's thing has two stories behind it. The one was that people on dialysis were getting dementia symptoms because the water they used to carry the solution had aluminum (many times the normal everyday exposure) in it and so it built up in their systems and caused an Alzheimer's-like dementia, although their brains under a microscope did not have the structures that are characteristic of the disease.

The other is that a lab in England (I think) found aluminum built up in the brain plaques of Alzheimer's patients and that caused a kerfluffle, but it was bogus because the lab was using solution with aluminum in it to prepare the slides. The plaques did not have aluminum in them to start with, they had absorbed the aluminum during the slide preparation. Apparently these plaques absorb metals like aluminum.

You would only need to worry if your kidneys were not functioning properly, otherwise we are exposed to the stuff everyday because it is one of the most common elements on Earth.

http://www.alz.org/national/documents/FSAluminum.pdf

p.s. From the last point in the article, stop drinking tea if you're worried about it!

thanks heaps dave

Personally I would be more worried about the lead used in the solder for copper piping. Lead is more easily leached into water when there is a natural acidic tendancy in the fluids.

My parents used roof water all their lives with lead sealed gutters and roofcaps ,dad died at 90 tell me it was lead? mum still going ,living 10km out of town alone 90 still gardening .

Niloc, r u serious? Its a know fact. maybe you're folks don't have very acidic rain, maybe there is not actually much contact with the lead lines areas compared to total collection are. but rest assured conc. in the parts per billion have been shown to depress the nervous system among other things.

Same arguement as smoking mate.

Yes Steve they didnt have silicon back those days. Im above the lead levels myself because of the lead spills at the esperance port!

you misunderstand. i am aware that it was used commonly, was more refering to the arguement of a long life

and were both smokers too arent we?

correct, but i have the intention of giving up one day soon. All i'm saying is that i KNOW its bad for me, regardless of the lucky people that still manage to lead a full smoke filled life