PVC piping leaching, and causing fish deaths??

[barrysalt]

I have several very large tanks which are serviced by a system of pvc pipes that are Series 40 pvc. We have had several outbreaks of disease (Amyloodinium) which, I was told, may be caused by this older piping leaching it's chemicals into the water system. This, in turn, (I was told) lowers the resistance to disease and made fish vulnerable to the disease. These tanks are FOWLR. The system was set up about 8 years ago. Is all of the above possible? I thought PVC piping was completely inert.
Would love to get some expert feedback on this! thanks....

[EricGRIT]

I wouldn't consider myself an expert, but I do believe there is sufficient evidence to confirm that PVC shouldn't cause any problems in a reef system assuming it is clean and free of foreign substances. I also believe PVC is totally inert.

A vast majority of people use PVC (schedule 40 and 80) for their plumbing. Many people also fill their QT tanks with PVC for hiding spots. All these people use PVC and there are no widespread issues reported. That's enough for me.

[blitz49]

I thought PVC does not leach, unless PVC is being broken down.

[ca1ore]

I have run tanks with PVC piping in excess of 10 years old. No issues that I could detect. Try running a polyfilter or two and see if anything changes; though I doubt it will. The whole resistance/ich thing is a crock if you ask me. Mucus coat is either thick enough or it isn't.

[barrysalt]

Thanks all, for your responses. It seems unanimous that pvc leaching is a non-issue! Don't know why my source for this info is so insistent on his position, but I am going to ignore it unless I get overwhelming information to support it. Case closed...

[reefwiser]

If PVC leaches then every one has a problem as most homes are piped with sch 40 PVC. More causes like not QT info new fish. Improper mix of fish personalities. Than something as off the wall is PVC leaching.

[ca1ore]

If PVC leaches then every one has a problem as most homes are piped with sch 40 PVC.

Not really. Most homes are copper on the pressure side; PVC is on the drain side which is irrelevant where our tanks are concerned. Even if it were on the pressure side, most folks use RODI at this point.

[CStrickland]

Where I live you can't plumb with pvc inside the walls. So the cold water coming in underground is ok, a lot of people run pvc from the well to the house. But once you hit the foundation it's mostly copper or pex, I think abs is ok too. I used pex to plumb my overflow cause I had a bunch left over, and I figure if it's up to code for potable water it's good enough for my tank, except the copper, obvy. Some of the stuff that they use to keep plastic from being brittle is less stable when it is warm, or exposed to uv, both of which happen in our tanks.

But I would think that anything leaching would be a hormone disrupter along the lines of not using certain plastics for hot preparations or long term storage, like how water bottles are BPA free now; or they are seeing weird reproductive changes in sealife in parts of the pacific where a lot of plastic accumulates in a gyre from ocean currents. Maaaybe phosphates from fire retardants. This would be almost impossible to quantify in a tank.

I think if it caused a disease outright, everyone's tank would be diseased and no one would use pvc.

[reefwiser]

Sadly not the case in this neck of the woods. Plastic shark bite piping on most new construction. Most average homes do not have any water filtering . RO/DI the average joe has not idea what that is.