That little thing called Copper...

[smidoid]

I just read Ninong's post about copper adsoption in glass with some horror. I am starting with a used tank that came from a non-reefer who kept marine fish and lost a fair few. Some of the last words he said to me were, "I've given up doing water changes and now I loose less fish."

I smiled politely - even at that stage you can guess what I was thinking! His wife was already moaning about algal blooms and this was a guy who'd just spent another $2000 or so on an even larger setup - hence why I was getting the old one.

Oh oh!

What hadn't occured to me was that he was doing a fish only setup with a crude bio filter based on various sizes of ceramic rings made (or marketed) by Fluval. Gracious knows what he was putting in the tank... and here my problems may be starting.

Given that I'm an invert fiend I'm starting to worry: a LOT! I inherited a crab hitchicker on the last lot of LR but I can't find it since it hides under the rock/sand I can't vouch for how it is and I'll be damned if I'm putting a cleaner shrimp in there until I know it's safe.

My first thought (and this is sadly cruel) is to use a hermit as a canary would have been used in the 18th and 19th century mines. I find test kits are a bit hit and miss unless you spend a small fortune on the right one and this may be spurious.

Suggestions, anyone?

[Reefland]

Marc,

I doubt that, if there were any copper left in the tank, that it would be at a level that would immediately kill off any inverts. If I recall, the release of any copper that was absorbed would be slow, and would slowly kill off the inverts. With that said, I think your only hope is to use some inverts as experiments to see if there are any long term effects. The problem here is if they do not make it, knowing whether it was any amount of copper or if it was something else.

[Ninong]

I find test kits are a bit hit and miss unless you spend a small fortune on the right one and this may be spurious.

You can't test for copper anyway because the test kits can't measure copper in the ppb range.

Suggestions, anyone?

Just ask the former owner if he ever dosed any copper based medication in the tank. If so, ask him how often and how long ago. When he sold you the tank, he should have told you if he had ever used copper in it. Hopefully he didn't.

[smidoid]

Umm. Yes, the problem of cause and effect - knowing the effect [i.e. death] does not necessarily pinpoint the cause. Bit of a bugger that! I guess I don't have much choice other than putting some hermits in and waiting to see if they perish. Better them than some more prized shrimps, I guess, but not my ideal solution.

I assume at this sort of concentration (parts per billion) which immeasurable with normal kits are toxic to inverts then the usual chemical filters won't work either. Or would they?

I'm going to fluidize some Rowaphos in the next couple of days to get any last traces of phosphate from the initial water charge: and that claims to remove some heavy metals I think. Presumably, there's also some Cu in the water anyway (as ???) since it came from a copper inflow pipe!

[smidoid]

You can't test for copper anyway because the test kits can't measure copper in the ppb range.

Just ask the former owner if he ever dosed any copper based medication in the tank. If so, ask him how often and how long ago. When he sold you the tank, he should have told you if he had ever used copper in it. Hopefully he didn't.

Thanks Ninong - we sort of crossed in the post there!

Your original sticky thread was very informative but we're talking about a guy who throws money at a problem - without any idea (and no care) of what was in the treatment. I think that's a dead duck - and hopefully, only a duck.

Given that he was running a marine (FOWSAE) tank I'm going to assume that he didn't use some copper sulphate-based treatment, but given the invert's sensitivity I don't really want to risk some expensive/sensitive creatures to chance. OK, there's always *some* risk, but it's about minimising it; isn't it?

Cheers

[capefear]

i changed my 90 gal. fish only into a reef tank over the winter, and i have used a ton of copper in this tank in the past. i just used some copper remover changed almost all of the water and used poly filter pads and let it run for a while testing the water often before i started to put live rock in the tank. i changed no plumbing from my sump or from anything and i do not have any problem with copper with this tank and i would bet that copper is not your problem. could you do a water test for everything and list your results along with the temp. also did you add cured or uncured liverock.

[smidoid]

I don't know that I have a problem (yet). It was just one of those horrible premonitions that you get when reading a post. Time will tell.

I used cured LR and just spotted what looks like a tiny "feather duster" worm on one of the bits. It's a bit too small to identify at this stage, but it ceratainly moves like filter feeding worm: vanishing back into its hole when the wife stared at it.

Having small creatures like this kinda puts me off crabs a little since I'd prefer not to lose them to predation. Bit of a double-edged sword.