Affect of metals in a large tank

[Nicholas Capozza]

Weird question, but let’s say you had a very large tank. Fifty thousand gallons, full of sps, lps, and soft coral. And you were to drop about 5 lbs worth of metal into the tank and let it rust over time. Would it have a negative affect on the tank. Could you reverse the affect by putting a large amount of conditioner in the tank?

Basically what I’m asking is; would a small amount of metal have an effect on a large tank.

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

Yes it would have a major affect look at the current natural reefs. The damage done is not all just by metal but yes it will kill your reef.

 

[Nicholas Capozza]

But how can corals grow on sunken ships that are made of metal in the ocean?

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

Umm just curious if you have researched this much . If you look up sciencenetlinks.com for an example shows how they remove the toxic metals and sink a ship to provide shelter to fish and other corals where they have lost certain habitats. http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news/science-updates/ships-reefs/. Also according to this these sunken ships have helped as tsunami barrriers. However, even with them removing the toxic metals, they still have failed and has killed fish and corals. Some of the best corals do grow on ships, but the are the old wooden ones. Soft corals can grow on the metal ones but very very slowly because of the acid. Sps corals take a extremely long time to grow and when they do, they grow extremely slow. According to National Geographic the ships provide great barriers and reefs, when they are wooden or have been there over 100s of years. In a sense of you did this with your tank you tank would crash because of the toxicity. Now somehow your tank is kept going despite crashing often, after about 100 plus years, (which I may add is normally past our life span), you may not be around to see the final result. So unless you remove the toxic metals from it, it would be a bad idea.

Tried to post more links but keeps posting the one I already provided.

 

[Nicholas Capozza]

Ok thank you.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Sarah, I agree with your reply but you are only thinking of part of the whole story. Ships sunk on purpose are prepped. But how about all the huge metal ships that were sunk in WWII in the South Pacific and other islands like Hawaii, Guam and more. These ships went down with no prep or removal of anything. They were even carrying lots of toxic cargo (fuel, bombs, etc) and they are covered in coral and have fish all over them!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying some metals aren't toxic and can be bad for any water system. But the ocean has a way of dealing with it. The solution to pollution is dilution. The oceans can deal with sunken ships. But even a big closed loop system (99.99% of all aquariums) can not. And some metals aren't even toxic. Even we reefers use GFO (basically metal rust) to help our water systems.

 

[Lasse]

Its all about concentrations - with sunken ships the toxics will be diluted by current and other water movements. The concentration will be determined by the volume of the whole ocean! If your metal will be toxic or not depends on dissolving factors, amount of metal, type of metal, time and tank size. Most of these factors is normally unknown, hence avoid most metals in saltwater - titan works but there have been questions arisen about aluminum lately

Sincerely Lasse

 

[brandon429]

The thread below is old so my links n pics seem to be gone but I did test total rusting of a shave razor in my one gallon sps Lps reef to help out a friend. The type of metal matters, rusty shaving razor is basically like GFO

It was a decent dilution test anyway, no harm luckily or my reef would be lost


5lbs of shaving razors wouldn't kill a one hundred gallon reef I bet.

 

[Nicholas Capozza]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

The thread is old so my links n pics seem to be gone but I did test total rusting of a shave razor in my one gallon sps Lps reef to help out a friend. The type of metal matters, rusty shaving razor is basically like GFO

It was a decent dilution test anyway, no harm luckily or my reef would be lost


5lbs of shaving razors wouldn't kill a one hundred gallon reef I bet.

Cool, thank you

 

[brandon429]

***Oops linked wrong thread ha was working cycling stuff elsewhere

I meant this, purposeful reef rusting:

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/l...t-of-metal-i-put-in-my-reef-as-a-test.217334/

I wish pics would load, I had it rusted up with brittle stars crawling across it, and hammer coral polyps resting on the blade no irritation. That part was during time r2r didn't take pic uploads and whatever hosting site I used probably went unfree lol

 

[Lasse]

Pure iron - nema problem - but how much is pure iron today?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

All these points are valid points but at the same time lol we are trying to compare an ocean to a 100 gallon give take a closed fish tank system. Yes nature finds away but why would anyone want to aka pollute their own reef tank? Yes can it benefit yes but at what risk? Is one willing to risk crashing their whole tank for an experiment?

I think if one had a separate tank and straight experiments on it, sure but why would anyone attempt or purposely kill a fish or coral. I’m all for having a successful reef, but why not try the natural way? It just may thrive better than what we could expect.

 

[brandon429]

By all means avoid metal for sure, but I did it in a nine year old system knowing it wouldn't kill and to give a poster at nano reef.com who dropped a smaller razor (exacto) in a larger tank some comfort.
Though I hadn't placed metal in my reef I knew it wasn't lethal due to years of thread work reading / showing the repeating pattern so many times of metal in reefs. Fish hooks etc

Randy didn't flinch in the thread and mentioned some rusting as well

screws and razor blades have been found in sandbeds since forever it's not a death issue. Can't downvote directly participating and logging an outcome, so far it's the only provided direct work in the matter... just a glimpse, but it establishes metal as not particularly harmful in some scenarios. I bet they'd cause a red strike on the triton test for one or more/no data yet on which animals can't tolerate

 

[lejeune981]

I've dropped 2 razor blades in my fuge.. unable to see.. let alone remove them...(100 lbs of rock..packed onto a 49 gallon bow front) it's been well over a year..and I'm sure they have all but rusted away to nothing by now.. also had about a cup of gfo spill into the same fuge.. have never noticed any nil effects

 

[Lasse]

Today we have ICP tests - they can give us a hint. But if you do not know which metals you should avoid - it is only a guess and see situation. Should we recomend stainless chillers again instead of titan chillers?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

Hello,

Umm just curious if you have researched this much . If you look up sciencenetlinks.com for an example shows how they remove the toxic metals and sink a ship to provide shelter to fish and other corals where they have lost certain habitats. http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news/science-updates/ships-reefs/. Also according to this these sunken ships have helped as tsunami barrriers. However, even with them removing the toxic metals, they still have failed and has killed fish and corals. Some of the best corals do grow on ships, but the are the old wooden ones. Soft corals can grow on the metal ones but very very slowly because of the acid. Sps corals take a extremely long time to grow and when they do, they grow extremely slow. According to National Geographic the ships provide great barriers and reefs, when they are wooden or have been there over 100s of years. In a sense of you did this with your tank you tank would crash because of the toxicity. Now somehow your tank is kept going despite crashing often, after about 100 plus years, (which I may add is normally past our life span), you may not be around to see the final result. So unless you remove the toxic metals from it, it would be a bad idea.

Tried to post more links but keeps posting the one I already provided.

You may want to re read the article. They described how ships carrying toxic chemicals weren’t cleaned well so leached the toxic chemicals in the water. They never referred to toxic metals. Copper is toxic. Perhaps other metals.

 

[dantimdad]

I can tell you that 4 zinc plated hose clamps destroyed a 150 gallon reef. The water was sent off for testing and came back with toxic, elevated zinc, chromium and iron.

So, if 4 hose clamps can do that to 150 gallons of reef...

Now, granted, this is a closed system and no one did proper water changes for 3 months.

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

Yes, I don't know the effects of metallic hose clamps but, I suspect that metals can be damaging to the reef. I get my water tested every 3 months. I use good salt and don't change - due to different elements like Lithium and Aluminum concentrations. My point is that the article didn't cover leaching of metals but, leaching of chemicals that were in the ships. I dose iron. Very little iron, as it promotes algae. Chromium and zinc are used as anti rust plating on the hose clamps. I only use plastic clamps, as I don't want to take any chances.

 

[Sarah24!]

You may want to re read the article. They described how ships carrying toxic chemicals weren’t cleaned well so leached the toxic chemicals in the water. They never referred to toxic metals. Copper is toxic. Perhaps other metals.

Hello,

If you had read my post I said there were other sites from National Geographic that I wasn’t able to post the link site. But as I stated the ocean has away to sort these things out and takes 100s of years. But that article that was linked to mainly focused on how sunken ships, once the toxic metals were removed (not materials but metals) they formed good tsunami barriers and helped restablish reefs for fish and some coral. It mainly grew soft corals, then lps then after several years some sps.

Chemically speaking when a ship stinks period despite what’s in it there is going to be some type of leaching. Because the ocean is vastly larger than any of our systems, it can handle it better and dilutes it. Trying to do this in a closed loop system would have negative effects, based on the metals are made (and consisting of) and even worse the chemical reaction that it goes through.

I for one test my water three times a week, because well that’s just me. Some like you every 3 months or whenever they feel the need. Metal leaching because of the chemical result is what causes disease and or kills tank inhabitants. Metal itself won’t kill them, both the chemical reaction does, which most of us know. In addition knowing the half life of such items to break down is usually longer than human life spans. There is more to this than just one article on how they did this and in which said even by removing said toxic metals they still had some very negative affects on fish and corals. Can one imagjne how that would work in a closed loop system from 20 gallons on up? It would be an exponential effect going from the ocean to our simple little system.

Sincerely
Sarah