Silicone with mold inhibitor

Scott Riaps · Mar 20, 2022

Looking for some opinions on what to do.
I made my own sump using GE Silicon 2. It has a mold inhibitor which killed off my tank. Fortunately, it was a start up, only lost one coral two snails one hermit crab.
My question is. Is the rock, sand and ceramic media contaminated and should be replaced?
I took the sump off line (currently scrubbing it after removing the silicone and will rebuild with aquarium silicone)
I put a canister filter on line with RAC and a "Poly Pad".
Some Info about tank
20 gal set up with canister filter originally. Cycled six weeks before adding coral, snails and hermits. Everyone was happy.
Two weeks after adding the inhabitants put the sump on line and took the canister filter off line. Made sure sump water was set to aquarium parameters including temp. With in two hours snails died. The parameters have stayed in these areas after initial cycling.
Salinity 1.024, PH8.2, Temp 79.3, Cal 460, Nitrate 5ppm, Ammonia 0.0ppm, KH10dkh, PO4 .25ppm, ORP313
What are your thoughts
Thanks in advance

T-J · Mar 20, 2022

Since it's such a small tank, I'd toss everything and start with fresh stuff.

Labridaedicted · Mar 20, 2022

When in doubt, toss it out. The rock and sand is so Porous that it will likely absorb the chemicals and then leach them over time. You could do a series of soaks in fresh water and dump the water and repeat a bunch, but since we don't have a way to test for the compound it's a crap shot as to whether it's all leached out.

Err on the side of caution and replace the contaminated stuff.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 21, 2022

I don't know the fate of such molecules in a tank scenario.

Scott Riaps · Apr 27, 2022

Just updating
I stripped the GE silicone from the sump and scrubbed it clean. Affixed the same panels with aquarium grade silicone. I am still currently running a canister filter with carbon and "Poly Pad" along with the sump. Waited 15 days before adding a new trochus snail to see what would happen.
The tank has recovered and the new corals and inverts are thriving. I was able to save the rock, ceramic media, and sand ($125 worth) for a $21 gamble (poly pad and snail).