Toxicity of nickel, copper, zinc and aluminum mixtures to the white sucker (Catostomus commersoni).

Abstract

The initial purpose of this study was to investigate several water quality parameters as possible causes of a fish kill which occurred in an eastern freshwater creek in 1978. The dead fish were found just downstream of a point where the natural creek received the confluence of two industrial effluent streams. One of the effluent streams originated from a holding pond containing elevated metal levels, and it was believed that a malfunction in the pH adjustment unit was responsible for a temporary drop in pH, leading to increased solubility of metals leaving the pond. The other effluent stream was more alkaline, and the white precipitate found near the dead fish suggested that the metals had formed a hydroxide precipitate when the two streams combined. An examination of many potentially causative factors, both physical and chemical, revealed that the only unusual condition present at the time of the kill was the presence of elevated metal levels in the creek sediments and dead fish tissues.