THE ACCUMULATION OF THE HEAVY METALS (COPPER AND ZINC) IN THE TISSUES OF RAINBOW TROUT (Onchorhyncus mykiss,

Abstract: Zinc and copper concentrations in the body tissues of rainbow trout (Onchorhyncus mykiss Walbaum 1792) exposed to different medium concentrations were determined for 30 days in this study. For this purpose, fish were exposed to 0 (control), 3, 5, 8, 10, 13 mg Zn/L and 0 (control), 0.01, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075, 0.1 mg Cu/L concentrations in the water. At the end of the study period, the concentrations of zinc and copper in tissue were measured by Atomic Ab-sorption Spectrophotometer (AAS). The values of zinc in the whole body tissues were 1.41 (control), 113.70, 105.09, 161.18, 167.25, 178.66 μg/g (dry-weight) in the fish exposed to 0 (control), 3, 5, 8, 10, 13 mg Zn/L concentrations, respectively, while copper were 1.45 (con-trol), 2.49, 3.41, 3.83, 3.91, 5.04 μg/g (dry-weight) in the fish exposed to 0 (control), 0.01, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075, 0.1 mg Cu/L concentrations, respectively. The results of this study indicated that accumulation of zinc and copper in the body tissues had increased with increasing metal concentrations in the medium