I'm trying to help someone out here so anyone who can answer a.s.a.p. He bought a fish from his LFS and brought it home and added fish/water to his tank. (no doggin he alreadys knows his mistake) Only to find out that the LFS keeps copper in all their tanks. He said it amounted to about 4 cups of water. It's a 55g reef tank. What can he expect?
So far I've suggested he take a sample of his water and have it tested for copper and that only time now will tell.
Difficult to say what will happen. Mainly it will depend on the concentration of Cu in the LFS water. Cu is a trace element. As long as the addition did not raise the Cu level in the tank to above "trace" amounts everything should be fine.
How long ago did he add the LFS water? If Cu is too high all of the invertebrates in the tank will die. This should happen in a very short amount of time. If he's really concerned there are Cu absorbing media that could be run in the tank (sorry I don't recall the name).
We keep the levels of Cu in our fish systems at 50% of treatment strength, I can't imagine a LFS keeping it any higher then that for long periods of time, as it is hard on the fish.
That being sad, treatment strength is .50 PPM, so it is VERY little CuSO4 when you consider the overall volume of water.
If he added only 3 cups of water, that had .5ppm of copper in it, to lets say 40 gallons of water (accounting for sand/rock) then I doubt very highly he will see ANY adverse effects at all in his tank.
Now, if he added 3 cups of CuSO4 to his tank directly, EVERYTHING would be dead in minutes.
Yea, I'm with the above posts. I wouldn't worry. The main concern with Cu is people dosing directly in their tanks or using something that leeches copper into the tank directly over time. Like if you dumped a copper pipe right into your display tank. Usually the little bit that ends up in drinking water, if you were to use tap to fill your tank, is tiiiiiiiiiny, as the copper only interacts with the water for a little bit. If you put the pipe right in your tank and didn't do water changes where it was constantly in contact with the same water over and over day after day, then it might be a problem.
As stated though, if it's a problem, his inverts should be keeled over by now.
I'm sorry, but I would err on the side of caution. I've seen what copper will do to a tank, and it was only from fumes from bottom painting a boat outside of the house. I would run the media to remove copper, even if it is only a small amount (and we don't know the levels). I believe it is called "Cuprisorb" or something along those lines.
As I trust poseidons info- i have to agree with mynemesis on the pro active aproach- better safe than sorry. Just in case- I would use a copper absorbing material in the filter/tank to remove what was introduced.
On a side not-
I also made this same mistake, years ago......didnt have test kits either.....It was about the 4th fish added, with the tank water that had copper in it, added to my tank before my corals/inverts started showing sighns of stress- which eventually lead to death.
Use a copper removing media, and get rid of the copper- however minute, even if there are no negative results from the newest addition.
not 100% sure, but pretty sure carbon wont absorb copper
Carbon absorbs copper just fine.
So do Polyfilters, but carbon is cheaper.
To the OP: run a cup of carbon and you should be fine. You added 4 cups of "tainted" water to 55 gallons. That's not much. Don't sweat it unless you see signs from your tank inhabitants that they are unhappy. My guess is they won't even notice it.
Copper in tank!!!
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Originally Posted by chort55
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