Thread: Heavy Metals in Pond Water?

I have been trying to look this up online all day and and still i have nothing. I was wondering if anyone can help me with what the natural levels of the heavy metals copper, iron, and lead are in pond water. Im doing an experiment the effects of heavy metals so i need to know how much i should put in a certain amount of water. I would think that the natural levels are around the same for each metal, but i really wouldn't know. Can anyone help?

It will be highly variable and be influenced by the surrounding geology.

Ponds (natural) have very low levels of the heavy metals. Think about the density of metals, and the in-flux of material?

Metals, if found, are located in the sediment on the bottom of the pond.

The pond water should not contain any heavy metals. If it's downstream from a mineral deposit it will enriched in sulphides, oxides etc, which aren't all that soluble in cold, neutral pH water.

Water is full of metals. Generally they are at such extremely low concentrations that it would be pointless to bother dealing with them. Tap water or rain water would probably be more or less accurate anyway.

I found one study (here's the pdf - scroll down to page 48) that measures the metal concentrations in "pond water". The study doesn't say anything about the pond itself though. For all I know it could be located on top of a mining slag heap or within a pristine alpine valley...

edit/ps I've no idea why the number "forty-eight" comes out as a smiley.

As they've said, it is heavily effected by the natural geology of the area.
But if you're doing an experiment on the effects of heavy metal concentrations, I would think that modifications could be done to water from different ponds.

i.e. A pond full of a certain type of organism will have very specific concentrations of heavy metals, if you were to extract that water and the organisms and then vary the levels of the heavy metals (addition of heavy metals and also a filtered form of the water) you could then study the effects.

This is because I would think that, the study being about biology, that it revolves around the organisms that rely on certain levels of heavy metals, and if and when it fluctuates, the effect that it has on the organisms.

EDIT: I would think that pond water, isn't a type of water with certain levels of different elements or compounds in it, it probably just means 'water from a pond'.
So if you are going to study it, do a case study on a certain area.

Originally Posted by Zwirko

edit/ps I've no idea why the number "forty-eight" comes out as a smiley.

An eight followed by a parenthesis is the code for a smiley face. Put a space after the eight.