Bad idea to use brass for DIY projects?

[Dan F]

Copper plumbing in your house isn't an issue at all if you're on municipal water. The water company adds a corrosion inhibitor for this very purpose. If you have copper plumbing in a house on well water on the other hand, you may want to let the tap water run a minute or so before filling your tank. The copper pipes in my house are 30 years old. Cut into one of them & they look brand new on the inside. Copper pipes in houses on well water only last about 20 years avg. before developing pin leaks all over the place. The pipes thin from the inside out. I've seen copper plumbing paper thin. You'd wonder how it ever held water.

I've used the occasional brass fitting on my aquariums. Never had a problem.

I agree^.

As a plumber I've seen plenty of paper-thin copper spring pinholes. As Oreo said, it's usually caused by aggressive water chemistry.

Another cause of copper decomposition is electrolysis caused by using dissimilar (copper and ferrous pipe/fittings) metals without dielectric couplings.

 

[Liam]

I can't say for sure. My guess is probably not, but that is only a guess. The ore is in an ionized form (pretty stable energy wise) rather than being pure copper. Its solubility is going to depend on the chemical composition of the ore. I don't remember enough about the chemistry of copper ore to give a better answer. You can do a little research to find the solubility of the ore.

You can also do a simple experiment. Put as much into a small tank or bucket of water for a month. Then take a sample of the water to a lab, pool store, water treatment plant, etc. for testing.

well if it was very soluble in water then they'd just use water at the mines. what they do to get the copper out of the ore is spray it with an acid, which eats the ore completely, then they filter it out eventually getting copper. so I don't think it would be that soluble in water. I don't think I'd put the ore in my tank anyway. prolly traces of anything on it. such as diesel (ANFO and from teh trucks and machinery.) acids and so on.

 

[Raven_]

May sound a bit crude but could put the ore in a bucket of water with a pump to get circulation on the water so as much of it as possible touches the ore and after a week put a fish in the bucket and se how it fares.

Could also test the water with a home cu-test, no idea though how good they are.

 

[invisyblegypsey]

here is a littel info on brass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass