Hospital and Quaratine tanks.

[smidoid]

One for someone (i.e. Lee) to write!

The differences and the similarities (i.e. you can use copper in an HT, but not in a QT) that sort of thing.

How about it Lee?

[leebca]

I really can't outdo what Steven Pro has written. He wrote an article that I agree with almost 100%. It isn't easy to find two experienced aquarists who can agree on anything!

To me, a hospital tank and quarantine tank are one in the same. The hospital tank is one used to put marine specimens in from the display that need healing; the QT is to put marine specimens into upon acquisition, for observation and if necessary, healing, before they go into the display.

Steven's article is found here, and I'm glad to reference it for everyone to read and try to follow:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-1...ture/index.htm

I would only take exception to his recommendation for the length of time a fish should remain in a quarantine tank after acquisition. He prefers recommending a month; I prefer recommending 6 weeks. Other than that, if someone asks me how to setup and run a hospital or quarantine tank, I will refer them to that article.

[smidoid]

To me, a hospital tank and quarantine tank are one in the same. The hospital tank is one used to put marine specimens in from the display that need healing; the QT is to put marine specimens into upon acquisition, for observation and if necessary, healing, before they go into the display.

Yeah. I've read Steven's article - if I needed any more convincing, that article did it for me (some time back).

As per my original post, something Ninong has raised worries me. We can't use copper in [display] tanks because it's adsorbed into glass. Even tanks that had copper used in the past can apparently have adsorbed sufficient copper to kill inverts some time later.

Surely, the same would apply here. We can use copper - well, pretty much anything within reason - in an HT because it could never be used for inverts. A QT, on the other hand, should never be used for anything in case it gets into the systems and affects a later resident: including inverts and corals.

Now this is largely just speculation on my part: it's up to you guys to pick the bones off it...

[leebca]

We can't use copper in [display] tanks because it's adsorbed into glass. Even tanks that had copper used in the past can apparently have adsorbed sufficient copper to kill inverts some time later.

That is totally new to me. I've never heard that before. If glass absorbs copper, and glass is denser than acrylic, then acrylic must absorb copper too? No way.

Copper doesn't migrate into glass here in the USA. We don't put copper meds into display tanks here because it would kill the inverts, benthic creatures, corals, etc. We don't put copper meds into display tanks here because the copper will precipitate out onto carbonate surfaces (coral skeletons, substrates, etc.) and then, if the pH should drop, redissolve and potentially be in such a concentration that it could/would kill even the fishes in the aquarium.

These are the guidelines we follow.

I use copper in my acrylic QT, but not all the time. Right now I have very sensitive Australian Butterflyfishes going through a quarantine process just after I had to use Cupramine on fishes that were in there just two days before the Butterflyfishes arrived.

I have a copper test kit that goes down to below 0.05 ppm copper. It shows that copper is 'not detected.' I check for copper, in case it is leaching out from any equipment, daily. Still no copper reading.

So if the copper is coming out from the acrylic or glass, then I would suspect it isn't measurable and thus wouldn't be of any consequence. Are you sure Ninong was writing about 'glass' and not substrate?

I can't rationalize the concept of copper migrating into glass. Glass, for all tense and purposes, is a slow moving liquid and allows only a few atoms/ions to migrate into it. Truly clean glass is hydrophilic, meaning water has an attraction to it. That is how we know a dirty glass -- a dirty glass has beaded water on it, implying that the glass has some other material on it, since clean glass would have the water flowing off in even sheets. So even if some ions migrate into it, why would they leave?

I haven't found what Ninong to be true, and I can't rationalize why it would be, but I would be certainly attentive to the scientific explanation.

We generally recommend that before equipment is used again for regular marine service after used in a copper treatment service, that it be rinsed first with bleach solution, rinsed with tap water, washed out with a mild unscented soap solution, rinsed with tap water, rinsed several time with RO/DI water and allowed to air dry. After being bone dry, you add salt water to the equipment (a good use for 'used salt water'), let soak, rinse in more salt water and finish the rinse in RO/DI. The equipment is ready for reuse.

But the above does not apply to any carbonate-based materials (coral, substrates, etc.) since they actively precipitate copper onto them and hold it. So if a QT/HT used a substrate in it that was carbonate based and there was a copper treatment, the substrate must be discarded. But the tank and equipment can be reclaimed.

Thanks for posting Marc!

[smidoid]

This thread:

Snails and hermits dying!

I think was the first time I came across it - although looking that up I found posts by Steven (Pro) where he didn't see it as a problem.

Other posters mention it, but Ninong is someone I trust... he obviously knows an ocean's worth more than I do!

And there's this assorted quote from the brilliant Dr Shimek.

Once added to a tank, it is essentially impossible to remove. It adsorbs onto every surface in the system and will gradually leach off for years. Copper is lethal in 1-2 ppb range and nothing we have access to in the hobby removes it easily or tests for it reliably in those ranges.

Funny you mention glass as a liquid - whenever I point that out, people look at me funny!

Anyway, I'm no chemist - what I (still) know could be written on the side of a false percular clown in marker pen.

[leebca]

I see what you mean. . .

There are other considerations to the problem. As is sometimes the case. I've researched snails and crabs. I can say without a doubt that snails can die off quite quickly here in the USA because so many of them are sold to us from cooler waters and when they go into our tropical marine aquariums, they slowly cook to death. The turnover rate on snails can be extraordinary. So I wouldn't draw too much from that event.

As for hermit crabs, I've never been much of a fan of them anyway. But if the aquarist is getting a "0" reading on copper then I wouldn't lean on copper poisoning that much.

Like I wrote above, we wash the equipment and we're ready to go again. In the case of my QT, I never wash it out, I just absorb out the copper and it's good to go.

If the glass is releasing copper and killing livestock, then it would make using activated carbon to remove it pretty useless. Yet most copper med manufacturers say to get the copper out by using activated carbon.

Glass. Yeah. If people would just stop to look closely at 200+ year old windows still standing, they'd clearly see the bottom of the glass pane is thicker than the middle and the top.

[smidoid]

I'm lucky on the glass thing. We have LOADS here - just a short drive from me is York city (the original one) and that has bucketloads of it. Even so, people still look at me like I come from another planet!

The copper... er... I'll let some chemists fight that one out. I don't trust anything manufacturers claim! Just look at BS claims for Miracle Mud and the Eco-Aqualizer.

Shimek's view on the test kits is that they can't reliably test in the range that still kills inverts (PPB) so we're no wiser. Much as I like hermits, its the microscopic inverts and tiny serpentstars that I would be more bothered about.

Bit of a bugger about the snails! I don't know where our stock comes from - the only thing I do know is where our FPCs come from - the major supplier to our LFSs has an active "nemo" breeding programme.

Course, the simple answer is use two quarantine tanks - one for inverts, LR and the like and the other for fish.

Hey, anyway, I value all your input. It's most appreciated.