Is it worth replacing my live rock?

[inktomi]

Hi!

I had a tank crash over the summer - a pump broke and released enough copper into my water to kill 99% of my coral. I used cuprisorb and quickly could no longer detect copper at all. I was going to start rebuilding.. but someone mentioned that live rock (I used MarcoRock) absorbs Copepr and so it might be a timebomb. If that's the case, I'd rather replace the rock.

Should I replace my live rock before starting to rebuild? Some coral did survive, you can see in this video, and so SOME of the exisitng rock would need to be reused - but the bulk of it _could_ be replaced if needed.

What do you think?

 

[blaxsun]

I've been told this as well (this is why QT systems are generally bare bottom without any rock). If you're going to keep the tank as a FOWLR, I'd leave it. But if you're planning to redo your mixed reef, yeah - it might be a good idea.

Fish love overhangs, crevices, tunnels and caves. If you can't see or generally reach into them without effort, you've made your fish very happy!

 

[inktomi]

Yea, for sure there will be acros and such

 

[G Santana]

Unfortunately, rock will absorb and then release that copper.
Better safe than sorry if you're going to keep corals.

 

[inktomi]

I’m thinking of maybe dissolving some in some water and vinegar and sending a triton icp test out to see. For sure I’d rather be safe than sorry though.

 

[jda]

How did a broken pump add copper to your system? Dosing pump over dose?

Aragonite does bind copper, but the bind does not reverse unless the aragonite is dissolved. In the end, marco rocks is probably no prize unless it was really established and looked and acted like real live rock, so probably no issues with getting rid of it. I don't know that it would hurt to reuse some of it. If you wanted to get rid of all of it, then a small pack of real gulf rock could be helpful to get everything going again. The biggest downside that I see is that is a LOT of rock, so that sucks.

 

[inktomi]

The copper windings in the pumps motor were exposed to saltwater unfortunately.

 

[Utubereefer]

In this hobby it’s always better to be safe than sorry

 

[jda]

You are probably OK. I asked once in the reef chemistry forum about this and they said that the copper would not break down in our lifetimes to a level that was deadly unless there was powder or liquid in there. Are you sure that there was not some oil, other substance of stray voltage in there that killed the corals?

Anyway, no harm to start over. Peace of mind is a powerful thing.

 

[inktomi]

At the start of die off I was able to detect a bit of copper using my Hannah checker, but as soon as I added cuprisorb I was unable to detect any more. It could have been voltage, likely was - I do have a grounding probe in the tank.

Corals continued to die off despite undetectable Copper levels - which makes sense since copper does get into some of the biological processes in the coral and interrupts their long term ability to survive. Once the coral died, I had a huge algae bloom. That mostly has passed, and that's where I am today.

I appreciate the feedback and suggestions!