Brass Fittings for Marine Tanks?

[TheMadNucleus]

I recently noticed that a few filter manufactures use brass fittings which come in contact with the marine water of aquariums (Rainbow Lifegard, ocean clear, nu-clear). These are fittings which attach the filtration system to a pressure guage.

Anyone have any info on the effect of brass on Marine Aquariums?

I have one of these systems and would like to add a 1" long by 1/4" brass nipple to the gauge to extend it to a more visible point and was wondering any opinions on the safety of doing this.

All comments welcome

Tom

[johnkristie]

I would absolutely not do this! I work for a marine toxicology lab and we had an almost complete die off of all of our fish in the lab once. We had our water analyzed and found extremely high levels of heavy metals in the water. We narrowed the cause down to a brass fitting on one of our pumps. After a while it starts to leach metals into the water to toxic levels.

[WarOrks15]

brass only leaches copper right? so if it were a fish only with no inverts you would be fine but then you could never have any inverts or corals. right?

[johnkristie]

I guess if you did frequent enough water changes it would be all right for fish. Yeah, but not inverts.