Dosing copper power to main display.

[jsanchez]

Hello everyone!

So I'm done with ich in my display. I did everything right, I thought, to keep ich and parasites out of my tank. All fish went through 2.5ppm copper for over 30 days. All inverts went in to coral QT and fallow for 75 days. Still got ich. At first I didn't care. All my fish are healthy and FAT. But man my tangs where showing it last month. Normally I practice ich management since I never had the space for enough QT tanks for ich eradication. I've always wondered if you can actually dose copper to the tank and not have leaching long term. If this doesn't work out and I can't have coral I'm fine with that. I deploy next year and would need to switch to FOWLR anyways and I'm buying a Waterbox 320 post deployment. I'm going to log my copper levels at least every 2 days and run 2.5ppm for 75 days. After that I'll perform a 100% water change and run cuprisorb. Once copper is undetectable I'll add hardy corals and continue with my wonky experiment.

Copper dosing began March 10th. Reached 2.5ppm as of March 17th, took it slow for the wrasses and anthias.

Tank details,
120g Standard tank drilled with a 40b Sump.
Skimmer, filter socks, and refugium (24 hour light cycle, AI Fuge light) for filtration.
I run ROX carbon 24/7 (does not from my experience remove copper power).
55w UV running 24/7.
Lighting is 2x AI Prime 16 and 4x T5HO, 2 Blue+ Bulb and 2 Coral+ Bulbs.

Livestock, (Yes its a lot, sue me.)
4" Blonde Naso
4" Sargassum Trigger
3.5" Hippo Tang
2.75" Purple Tang
3.5" Yellow Tang
3.5" Desjardini Sailfin
2" Clown Pair
3" Pintail Fairy Wrasse
3" Midas Blenny
2" Ruby Longfin Fairy Wrasse
3" Half male Lyretail Anthias
2.5" Female Lyretail Anthis
4x Peppermint Shrimp that I could not remove

Current Parameters
Ph 8.35/8.5 (Night/Day)
Salinity 35ppt
Alk 8.5
Mag 1320
Cal 460
NO3 10ppm (Daily dose)
PO4 0.03ppm (Daily dose)
Cu 2.5ppm

 

[Jekyl]

Problem with copper in your display is that it leeches into your rock and substrate. In turn it can be deadly to inverts and doesn't go away.

 

[jsanchez]

See and that's what everyone says, yet I've seen first hand that it doesn't. Which is what's leading me to do it myself.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

What are you using to measure copper?
Jay

 

[jsanchez]

I'm using the Hanna Copper Checker.
Once copper is out of system I'll send in biweekly or monthly ICP tests.

From March 17th till March 23rd Copper has stayed at 2.50ppm +/- .05pp

 

[jsanchez]

Today's copper is 2.58

So you cannot use the Hanna phosphate or phosphorus checker when dosing copper. Your reading will be extremely elevated.
I diluted my tank water to 1/10 when testing and reader still was at 0.90ppm and flashing.

Went in to my saltwater bin, tested water and it read 0.00ppm. Grabbed a 1 gallon sample, raised it to 2.5ppm copper and the fresh mix now reads 0.90ppm PO4.

Not sure what I'll do since I've been dosing PO4. Not a fan of dosing and not testing.

 

[jsanchez]

Today's reading. Still no noticeable reduction due to being absorbed by rock or sand. I'm surprised it hasn't gone down due to my chaeto either. Have about a 5 gallon bucket full of chaeto in my sump. Shrimp are still alive after a week of copper. Still can't catch them.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Back when I had this FOWLER up and running I hit the same wall as you did— tired of (in my case), repeat bouts of Marine Velvet. So I ‘Nuked it’ with Copper. No big deal.

 

[jsanchez]

That's good to hear! I've heard everything from the sand will be unusable to the aquarium silicone will be toxic.

Today's copper reading was 2.35 so we finally have some absorption.

 

[jsanchez]

Today's reading is 2.55ppm Cu.

 

[jsanchez]

Had a busy couple days and haven't tested since Wednesday. Today's copper is 2.26
Unsure how much of that is being taken up by the rocks/sand and how much is being used by the almost 8 gallona worth of chaeto in the sump. Copper back to 2.5ppm at end of day.

 

[DaddyFish]

The hearsay/myth about silicone absorbing copper is false. Modern silicone adhesives will not absorb enough copper to have any impact on the tank.

It does take a lot of water changes and time to get all the copper out of an active tank, but it can be done and I've done it twice in two years, including removing copper from 10-liters of Matrix (in stages) to boot.

 

[Biff0rz]

Subscribing.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Ya id be doing wcs if i wanted that copper to go down. Carbon charcol too.
D

 

[jsanchez]

Ya id be doing wcs if i wanted that copper to go down. Carbon charcol too.
D

Activated carbon doesn't remove chelated copper. At least not to a noticeable degree. I'm running 2 cups of fresh (added Tuesday) ROX carbon right now and in 3 days copper went down 0.35 ppm and I bet the vast majority of that went in the rocks.

Only really way to remove it is with copper specific absorbing media like cuprisorb or polypads.

 

[jsanchez]

The hearsay/myth about silicone absorbing copper is false. Modern silicone adhesives will not absorb enough copper to have any impact on the tank.

It does take a lot of water changes and time to get all the copper out of an active tank, but it can be done and I've done it twice in two years, including removing copper from 10-liters of Matrix (in stages) to boot.

Yeah that's one thing I'm not looking forward to. Hate doing water changes to begin with lol. Plan on removing as much as possible with cuprisorb then water changes (with 24/7 cuprisorb) to get rid of it.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Its your tank. I gave my advice. Lol. Good luck.
D

 

[threebuoys]

I've had good luck with cuprisorb to remove copper. It works relatively quick. My experience with activated carbon was not as successful. I ran a test in a 5 gallon bucket and after a week saw no measurable change in copper level.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Activated carbon doesn't remove chelated copper. At least not to a noticeable degree. I'm running 2 cups of fresh (added Tuesday) ROX carbon right now and in 3 days copper went down 0.35 ppm and I bet the vast majority of that went in the rocks.

Only really way to remove it is with copper specific absorbing media like cuprisorb or polypads.

Some will go into the rocks , but some will also leach back out. Chelating copper is a process whereby the copper ion is bound to a larger molecule for stability. This process helps keep copper levels in the treatment tank much more stable as chelated copper is a compound added to Copper Sulfate. These agents help keep Copper in a solution by forming a ring structured Copper. These complexes become stable in a different form and more of a complex form of treatment. For the most part, most aquarium keepers use Copper Sulfate rather than Chelated Copper, because of the strength and the difference in effort to remove the treatment from the tank. The use of Chelated Copper is advised only in hospital tanks.
High quality active Carbon will do the trick for removing Copper. You can place a separate filtration unit containing fresh, activated charcoal at the rate of 170 grams per 57 liters of water (about 0.375 lbs per 15 gallons) on a system to remove Copper. Once all the water has cycled through the carbon, test for free copper concentration. If Chelated Copper has been used, water changes will be necessary. 20-30 years ago, adding Dolomite to the water flow also helped reduce chelated copper.
Polyfiber pads will remove chelated copper better, cuprisorb removes ionic copper faster. I use all three regardless. I use poly fiber pads, cuprisorb, and carbon in conjunction with MASSIVE water changes. 8 sq. inches or ¼ of a Poly-Filter will absorb 285.60 - 288.00 mg of Copper ions. Poly-Filter absorbs any type of copper both chelated and nonchelated forms.

 

[DaddyFish]

Yeah that's one thing I'm not looking forward to. Hate doing water changes to begin with lol. Plan on removing as much as possible with cuprisorb then water changes (with 24/7 cuprisorb) to get rid of it.

I had better results doing the opposite, water changes first then Cuprisorb and carbon.
2-3 big water changes gets it 0.3- and then let the Cuprisorb and carbon take over.

Following up on this post. Just today I tested a 90-gal DT that had been treated with CopperSafe for 21-days at 2.0. It's had four(4) 25% water changes in three weeks, running 200 ml of Cuprisorb in the fine mesh bag hanging inside the tank itself, and three(3) lbs. of carbon at 1-lb each week. After 3-weeks copper is undetectable (0.0) based on Hanna and Exact iDip testing.