Opinions on Using Copper Bits in Seawater Strainer

[robertsapp]

The seawater lines to my air conditioning system have a pretty thick layer of green scum in them. I'm thinking about taking a few short lengths of scrap copper plumbing pipe that are laying around my garage and dropping them into the basket of my Perko seawater strainer. My thinking is that the seawater moving through the system should pick up some copper ions on the way and eventually kill the growth in the lines. Do you think this would work? Or would it actually take a biocide flush to do the job?

 

[Buck420]

Perhaps better than attempting to use copper to reduce/eliminate marine growth in the A/C's raw water side .... you might want to do as suggested to me by a Marine Air tech at a boat show... put one small ( about 1"dia) pool chlorine tablet in your strainer basket when the A/C is going to run, off and on, for the day, (so that the chlorine tab dissolves and doesn't just sit in the strainer).
I've been doing this for years... once or twice a Summer... and it seems to
take care of the problem.

 

[robertsapp]

Hmmm. Interesting. Thanks, I'll give it a try.