Quarantine tank with dry "copper" rock?

[josh515025]

Ok so I have some new family members arriving tomorrow for my 75G reef from LiveAquaria! I previously had to go fallow on my tank and I quarantined 6 small fish in a 20 long for 8 weeks. I treated using prazipro and copper power afterwards. I used live rock which I didn't need anymore instead of PVC because I wanted the fish to feel comfortable. (Rock was in there the whole time, was dosed with copper). I tested with Hannah LR copper checker about every 4-5 days and the level didn't go below 1.5 although it did swing from 2.0-1.5 in between my tests.

Anyways now I have about 15lbs of rock I can't use for a display (I have enough in my 75). It's been sitting in a bucket with a powerhead for a month now. Would I be able to use it in this quarantine tank? I can't find a straight answer on the forums, the reason I hear most is not to use it because it can be difficult to measure copper level and because rock won't be usable in display tank.

I actually haven't decided what I will do yet, first I will get the fish to eating then treat with 2 rounds of Prazi... but I'm undecided wether to observe only for a couple of weeks or go ahead and treat with copper even if there are no symptoms... any advice or ideas appreciated.

 

[GBRsouth]

If you use live rock in your qt, the following things I can think of are issues you will be dealing with:

1. Therapeutic levels of copper will be harder to maintain as the rock will be absorbing the copper and continuously be reducing the level of copper in the water.

2. Dosing prazi would require a separate qt as the rock would leach copper back into the water and the two medications are not compatible.

3. Invert qt would require a separate qt as you could never stop copper leaching out of the rock.

So Yes, you could use it for a fish only qt. You have to decide if these limitations it creates are worth it to you for something that could be replaced by plastic shelters for the fish and sponge filter for the bacteria without these limitations.

 

[Old Fritz]

I have used copper in systems with both sand and live rock and here is what I have found.

• Maintaining therapeutic levels of copper is not nearly as difficult as people make it out to be
• You in theory could have inverts (obviously not while treating the tank lol) I wouldn't recommend it though as who knows how long your rock and sand will be leaching out copper. I've done it but I would always have fresh carbon in my tank as its the best way to remove cupramine (the copper I use) out of the water
• Fish don't care
• there is not actually that much copper being absorbed into the rocks and sand; enough to impact inverts if it leached out but probably not enough to impact fish
• I have used copper in conjunction with other medications like general cure (which is metroplex and prazi) and with furan-2 and metroplex. You need to aerate your tank heavily to do this though and if your fish stop eating i'd back off one of the medications

 

[josh515025]

Hmm, that’s what I was thinking... from my observations it took quite a while for copper levels to drop from absorption by the rock. (The only other explanation is it drops/rises very dramatically from day to day).

I would think the levels of it leaching out of the rock would be negligible when I’m treating with prazi and so they wouldn’t interfere...

I’m curious if anyone’s tested daily to see how much absorption/leeching actually occurs.

And I would never QT inverts with this rock obviously.

 

[lion king]

Just as you can effectively treat with copper and maintain a consistent therapeutic level with rocks and substrate; you can also completely remove the copper from the rocks and substrate. The water will become saturated in removeal just as the rocks and substrate does during treatment.

The best method to remove the copper is to run cuprisorb through a reactor 2 weeks past the point of when you test zero with your copper test. You can also use carbon or any other media that removes medications. Running a bio marine poly filter at the end to assure removed all the copper is good insurance, it will turn blue if any copper remains and will remove any remnants.

I have run reefs with inverts after copper removal of treated tanks with 100% success.